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Date:      Thu, 11 Jun 1998 06:43:08 +0200 (MET DST)
From:      Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
To:        mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith)
Cc:        current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: floating point usage within the kernel - howto ?
Message-ID:  <199806110443.GAA21849@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
In-Reply-To: <199806110503.WAA00904@antipodes.cdrom.com> from "Mike Smith" at Jun 10, 98 10:03:30 pm

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> > a local user has a need to do some Floating Point computations within
> > the kernel. I think this is not possible without explicitly
...
> The simple answer is "don't do it".  You might try '-msoft-float' as a
> compiler option, but it'd be better just to come up with a fixed-point
> or manually-coded floating point implementation.
> 
> What do they want to do FP in the kernel for anyway?

they want to run a P-I-D controller (and more generic controllers
if this goes well) to control a few motors, for didactical purposes.

The used to do the same thing under DOS, by hooking this 'real-time'
task to the timer interrupt. I am trying to push them to use FreeBSD
(and an LKM for this module) so that they can easily access the
controller across the network or via the web, use high level stuff
for visualization, etc.

For sure they can do fixed point, but if i can find a solution for
'save_fp_regs()/restore_fp_regs()' this might have other uses as well.

	cheers
	luigi
-----------------------------+--------------------------------------
Luigi Rizzo                  |  Dip. di Ingegneria dell'Informazione
email: luigi@iet.unipi.it    |  Universita' di Pisa
tel: +39-50-568533           |  via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy)
fax: +39-50-568522           |  http://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/
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