stank@orca.TEK.COM (Stan Kalinowski) (12/04/86)
[ My apologies to the 'm68k readers who might have seen this request before. I'm repeating my request because I didn't get much response the first time. I thought my first request might have went unnoticed among all those messages about byte ordering. I suppose it is also possible that no one is interested in 68020 applications that run with or without a floating point coprocessor.] We (Tektronix) would like to obtain (buy/rent/lease/copy/you-name-it) an F-line exception handler package that emulates the 68881 floating point commands. Intel provides support for 8086 applications that run with or without the 8087 and I would imagine that many people have need for similar support for the Motorola 68020/68881 combo. I've read in the Motorola MC68020 user's manual that an application can be made to run on systems with or without a 68881 by simply changing the F-line exception handler. In systems where a 68881 is present the exception handler would have only the code to handle "normal" 68881 exceptions (invalid adressing mode, etc.). In systems where the floating point coprocessor is not present, the F-line exception handler would emulate the missing coprocessor (instruction decoding, calculation, place result in proper place, the whole schmear.). If anyone out there knows of a source for such an animal please reply to this message. We're also looking for ordinary IEEE floating point packages that might be converted to this purpose. We'll take any leads or suggestions. I'll sumarize what I find to the Net if there is enough interest. Stank.