dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu ( D. Murdoch - Statistics ) (09/15/88)
I'm about to buy a budget '386 system (a 16 Mhz Taiwanese clone based on a Chips & Technologies chip set, which boots up saying it's got a Phoenix 386 BIOS v 3.06, and Chips and Technologies chipset soft setup version 1.12). I'd appreciate any comments on the likely problems with such a machine. The main reason I'm posting this message, however, is because the system is only socketed for an 80287, not an 80387. The differences between the two that I know about (the '387 has more transcendentals and faster operations, and it follows an IEEE standard for floating point computations more closely) don't worry me. What worries me is whether there are differences between the two when the '386 is running in protected mode, since it is so different from the '286. Will an OS/3 (or whatever) program that exploits the '386 be able to use a '287? Will there be substantial performance penalties? Please email responses to me. I'll post a summary. Thanks in advance! Duncan Murdoch dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu