x86 and Other Stuff Q&A


Read the question, think of the answer, click on the question to see the answer.

Q: What chip was the 8088 a scaled down version of?
Q: The 8086 chip used 20 bits for memory addressing, what did this allow for in terms of memory?
Q: What address modes where listed here and in Hennessey and Patterson?
Q: What type of architecture was used for the 8087 coprocessor?
Q: What are the six units added to the 80386 architecture?
Q: How did the 80486 chip use a five-stage pipeline to almost reach one stage per cycle?
Q: What does MMX Stand for?
Q: What are some of the new additions of the MMX pipeline?
Q: What is the 90/10 rule in reference to the 57 new instructions?
Q: What are the 4 new datatypes which the MMX SIMD instructions work on?
Q: Name the 7 categories the MMX SIMD instructions fall into?
Essay Questions
1: List the generations of 80x86 chip architecture, and note any major changes
2: Explain how there are new MMX registers if no new registers were added.
3: Explain why the MMX chip cycle sinkhole can be a problem for the games.


Q: What chip was the 8088 chip a scaled down model of?

8086

Q: The 8086 chip used 20 bits for memory addressing, what did this allow for in terms of memory?

Allowed for 1Megabyte of addressable memory

Q: What address modes were listed here and in Hennessey and Patterson?

Register indirect, indexed,

Q: What type of architecture was used for the 8087 coprocessor?

Stack

Q: What are the six units added to the 80386 architecture?

Q: How did the 80486 chip use a five-stage pipeline to almost reach one stage per cycle?

Reduction in the overhead needed in memory references introduced by the 8088

Q: What does MMX Stand for?

Officially, MMX stands for nothing - since an acronym can't be trademarked, Intel had to abandon the idea that it stood for MultiMedia eXtensions to try to get a trademark.

Q: What are some of the new additions of the MMX?

Q: What is the 90/10 rule in reference to the 57 new instructions?

10% of the code doing 90% of the work. The MMX instructions are intended to speed up these types of repetitive operations as are appearing in modern software.

Q: Name the 4 new datatypes which the MMX SIMD instruction work on?

Q: Name the 7 categories the MMX SIMD instructions fall into?

1. List the generations of 80x86 chip architecture, and note any major changes

2. Explain how there are new MMX registers if no new registers were added.

3. Explain why the MMX chip cycle sinkhole can be a problem for the games.