Is there any kind of standard for 8086 multiprocessing?

Posted by Earlz on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Earlz
Published on 2010-05-06T03:39:08Z Indexed on 2010/05/06 4:18 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 278

Filed under:
|
|
|
|

Back when I made an 8086 emulator I noticed that there was the LOCK prefix intended for synchonization in a multiprocessor environment. Yet the only multitasking I know of for the x86 arch. involves use of the APIC which didn't come around until either the Pentiums or 486s.

Was there any kind of standard for 8086 multitasking or was it done by some manufacturer specific extensions to the instruction set and/or special ports?

By standard, I mean things like: How do you separate the 2 processors if they both use the same memory? This is impossible without some kind of way to make each processor execute a different piece of code. (or cause an interrupt on only one processor)

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about x86

Related posts about history