jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU wrote:
> Oh.  I thought the x86 memory-to-memory ops were atomic.
They are atomic with one CPU, but not in a multi-CPU system.
Instructions can be made atomic if preceeded by the LOCK
prefix (some (one?) instructions, e.g. EXCH, are atomic anyway).

Well, at least this was the situation 10 years ago on the
386, but why would Intel have changed anything? :-)

     -- Lennart