Korona wrote:
No, they are not. But nullplan probably meant 16-bit real mode unless I am missing something.
YES, yes, that is what I meant. Geez, what a bad mistake to make.
eekee wrote:
Are "legacy-free" systems different?
"Legacy-free" typically refers to the selection of hardware on the mainboard. At least, I have never heard it used otherwise in the context of PC hardware. As such, a legacy-free system may be lacking a traditional BIOS, and it may lack a PIT and a PIC pair, and an ISA DMA unit (etc. I can do this all day), but it will still boot up in 16-bit real mode. It will be quickly made to transition into another mode, but that's where it will start, as long as Intel don't release new CPUs that lack these modes. In that case we will all have to rewrite our trampolines, but that's a story for another time.
eekee wrote:
Now I'm wondering about running different cores in different modes, but that's another topic.
Well, the different CPUs are entirely independent of each other, other than sharing physical memory, so if you want to do such a thing, knock yourself out. I don't know why you would want to, but you probably could.
bzt wrote:
Maybe try to look it the other way around: all cpu is running in parallel, and you don't pick a cpu to run a task on, rather you pick a task on each and every cpu.
This is why I'm not a teacher: you explain this so much better than me.