> In message <199704101949.VAA00692@Kyra.FutureGroove.de> you wrote:
> 
> > The most overhead currently is trap and interupt handling I guess. 
> 
> .. therefore avoiding this huge overhead.
> 
> If I got it right, his fpe module would replace the instruction 
> at call time with a jump to an fp function - so the next time 
> the same bit of code is executed, the exception/decoding etc. doesn't
> take place. 

This would result in a 'self modifying code'. Since the invention of the 
instruction cache in the processors this (my meaning) is no longer efficient 
enough because you have to switch off the cache for this (I think someone else 
said this already some days before in this thread).
A better solution is to write it as softfloat library for the gcc. (can not a 
existing softfloat library from a other machine be compiled/ported to our 
system ?)

Next idea: If a DSP would be present in the system, would this improve the FP 
performance if the floatingpoint requests from a (special) softfloat library
would be calculated by the DSP ?
I'm not shure whether the encoding/transmitting/decoding overhead for this 
mechanism still keeps the speed improvement of the DSP. (Native DSP soft is 
regions faster).
(I ask this not without a reason ;)


Ciao, Peter

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
|                                                                          |
|                            >>> FutureGroove <<<                          |
|                                                                          |
| Peter Berg                                       Music production &      |
|                                                  softwaredevelopment     |
| w3: http://www.ww.tu-freiberg.de/~pberg                                  |
| email: Peter.Berg@ww.tu-freiberg.de                                      |
|                                           part time system administrator |
|                                                   at *.ww.tu-freiberg.de |
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/