Re: 64 bit operations w/32 bit kernel

[Michael Uhler <uhler@mips.com>]

On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 10:31, Finney, Steve wrote:
> What would be the downside to enabling 64 bit operations in user space on a 32 bit kernel (setting the PX bit in the status register?). The particular issue is that I want to access 64 bit-memory mapped registers, and I really need to do it as an atomic operation. I tried borrowing sibyte/64bit.h from the kernel, but I get an illegal instruction on the double ops.
> 
The most glaring problem is you violate the rule that the 64-bit GPRs
are sign-extended when running a 32-bit binary.  There are all kinds
of assumptions in the hardware and software that depend on the
GPRs being sign-extended, and to violate this will risk some
serious instability of the software.

> Also, assuming this isn't a horrible idea, is there any obvious single place where "default" values in the CP0 status register get set?
> 
> Thanks,
> sf
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