Actually, almost all processors today use microcode. The alternative to
microcode is structures of logic gates, which is faster, but takes more
development time and chip area.
The Pentium 4 has loadable microcode. See
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5149
tOM
On Wednesday, March 03, 2004 at 9:47,
Mark Dapoz <olympus@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
> Original 8" floppies had 80K of storage. That storage was used for the
> processor microcode, not the OS. The microcode is the raw bit sequences
> used to flip the latches in the processor to implement the instruction set.
> It wasn't uncommon for a new release of the OS to come with new microcode
> which implemented some fancy new instructions needed by the new OS. I don't
> think any modern processor is microcode loadable any more, they're all hard
> wired nowdays.
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