Why do you need a 387 to run X11R3?

[James R. Howard]

 > The  conventional wisdom seem to be, that in order to run X11R3 (either
 > the ESIX port or the Interactive port) you should have:
 > a) a fast  cpu
 > b) gobs of memory
 > c) floating point support
 > 
 > I can see the fast cpu and RAM parts, but why the floating point?  I 
 > just took a (very quick) look through the X11R3 server source, and there
 > doesn't seem to be much floating point.  In fact, except for drawing arcs, 
 > I can't see why any floating point is needed.
 > 
 > Can anyone shed some light on this? 

Well, the Athena Widget set uses quite a bit, especially in the Box Widget
code, which a LOT of clients use.  This is probably why it is necessary.
If you have ever had two identical systems side by side, one with, one
without the 387, you'd see the difference quite clearly.



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James Howard
..cs.utexas.edu!dell!mustang!jrh   or    jrh at mustang.dell.com

"I've got a firm policy on gun control, if there's a gun       
around, I want to be the one controlling it."          
-- Clint Eastwood 
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