[coreboot] REPLY: INT 13H

[Philipp Stanner]

On 30.08.2017 14:54, Peter Stuge wrote:
> Compatibility is the only actual value of x86.
Hi,
I was often wondering why they don't at least try to get rid of the 
*very* old stuff when it's not possible to get rid of the middle-old stuff.

It's understandable that it's necessary to provide a 
32-bit-compatibility mode on 64-bit systems. It *was* understandable 
that it  was necessary to provide a 16-bit-compatbility-mode then the 
first 32-bit-CPUs appeared. As far as I understood the Intel 
Programmer's Manual the CPUs provide a 16-bit compatibility-mode in 
64-bit-long-mode...

I don't see a reason why it should be impossible to abolish Real Mode, 
Segmentation and basically everything beside Long-Mode and virtual 32 
Bit-mode.
The Operating-System-Manufactures would need a bit of time to change 
their operating systems to be able to start without BIOS calls and 
remove the procedures to set up the flat segmentation.

Intel is powerful enough to make this change I believe. The question is 
if they benefit from changing x86, making it more modern.

By the way we shouldn't forget that behind the 
legacy-compatibility-stuff and the microcode a very strong, efficient 
and modern RISC-machine is alive.

P.