Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 17:38:04 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <199803150138.RAA29692@adit.ap.net>
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To: perfecto AT mail2 DOT nai DOT net (Perry DOT Fecteau AT Republican DOT COM), djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Nate Eldredge <eldredge AT ap DOT net>
Subject: Re: how to find out what processor is being used??
Precedence: bulk

At 12:42  3/13/1998 GMT, Perry DOT Fecteau AT Republican DOT COM wrote:
>i'm guessing it's a bios call.  or is there an address i can find this
>information in?

Nothing so simple. It depends on just what you want to know.

Finding out the model (386, 486, Pentium) is fairly easy. Mostly it involves
checking how various flag bits work. I think there's a routine to do this on
www.intel.com.

Finding the brand (Intel, AMD, Cyrix) is harder. You can use CPUID if it's a
Pentium or better, otherwise you have to deal with a lot of undocumented
stuff. I think the Interrupt List (Simtelnet: info/inter*.zip) has some
routines for that.

Finding the speed is very hard. You have to time various instructions, and
it all differs between brands and models. Try to avoid that.

Nate Eldredge
eldredge AT ap DOT net