RFC: Dropping i386/soft-float and 386ex BSPs

[Till Straumann]

On 02/15/2011 08:34 AM, Joel Sherrill wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am wondering if the time has come to drop support for
> x86 w/o HW FPU (e.g. multilibs with software floating
> point. I do not know of any CPUs currently available
> which match this profile. If there are any x86
> w/o HW FPU available, please correct me.

I believe there are a few x86 w/o HW FPU out there.
Look at small low-power SBCs, pc104 cards and the like
and you'll find them.

E.g.,

http://www.vortex86sx.com/?page_id=195

http://www.icop.com.tw/pddetail.aspx?id=49&pid=4

I vote against removing soft-float.

-- Till

>
> Periodically gcc breaks for this because no one else even
> builds this variation except RTEMS. This alone is not
> justification but it is a serious hint this configuration is
> WAY past its prime.
>
>  From a practical viewpoint, this would likely involve:
>
> + dropping the i386ex and ts386ex BSPs
> + dropping i386/soft-float multilib variant
> + maybe dropping i486/soft-float
> + probably moving minimum CPU assumption to 486
> in GCC for i386-rtems gcc.
>
> Any thoughts? Anyone care about i386DX w/o FPU,
> i386ex, and 486sx?
>