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Groups > alt.os.assembly > #20

Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU

From James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com>
Newsgroups alt.os.assembly, alt.lang.asm, alt.os.development
Subject Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU
Date 2016-09-04 13:01 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <nqh2e0$fal$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References <563a8630-6a56-4480-9b76-d519ca60acbe@googlegroups.com> <20160903231714.401eef2c@_>

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

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On 04/09/2016 04:17, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Sep 2016 19:10:19 -0700 (PDT)
> muskrat7@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know why 64-bit long mode does not have built-in hardware
>> protection? I know many didn't use the 32-bit hardware segmentation
>> but it was a nice option to have if you wanted... Did they just get
>> rid of it in 64-bit mode due to the perception it wouldn't be used or
>> were there other limitations that prevented this feature?

Segmentation was a brilliant idea but was let down by Intel's Protected 
Mode implementation which distinguished between segmented and 
non-segmented pointers and thereby created lots of complexity.

People generally just used 32-bit pointers.

I gather than when AMD asked Microsoft and others what they wanted from 
64-bit mode there was, because of the familiarity of the above flat 
32-bit address mode, little or no demand for segmentation. AMD therefore 
dropped it and lots of other things for which they found little or no 
interest.

(They did not delete these things from the CPU - which still has them in 
PMode - only from 64-bit Long Mode.)

IMO, even with the flat pointer model, it is a pity that AMD went as far 
as they did.


-- 
James Harris

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Thread

Protected mode on 64-bit CPU muskrat7@gmail.com - 2016-09-03 19:10 -0700
  Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU Rod Pemberton <NoHaveNotOne@zxdehrnyya.cam> - 2016-09-03 23:17 -0400
    Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU "wolfgang kern" <nowhere@never.at> - 2016-09-04 11:27 +0200
    Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-04 13:01 +0100
      Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU Muskrat <muskrat7@gmail.com> - 2016-09-04 10:10 -0700
      Re: Protected mode on 64-bit CPU James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-04 21:53 +0100

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