Re: different alpha cpu compatibility issues?

["warp xs4all nl" <warp xs4all nl>]

Eric Ding wrote:

Hi,

> I notice that there are various types of machines, all of which fall under
> the category of "alpha" -- for example, in the config.guess of gcc 2.95.2,
> it checks if it's running on alpha vs. alphaev5 vs. alphaev56, etc.
> 
> Are there compatibility issues between different alpha boxes?  For example,
> for Applixware, the build machine which we currently use for releases is
> an EV56 machine, according to /proc/cpuinfo, 

Yes, for example, code that is specificly optimized for an EV56 CPU
will not run properly (if at all) on older EV4(5) machine's and can
produce errors like Signal illegal instruction.
 
This is because the EV56 CPU's supports instructions and
optimizations which are lacking in the older EV4 CPU's.

(Same applies for optimized EV6 code on a lower CPU model,
 etc.).

Hope this helps,

Regards,
Antoine