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Killbits is the one I've heard most commonly - as the talk says, most modern processors have a bunch because it's impossible to test every possible edge case a
by rincebrain 11y ago
Killbits is the one I've heard most commonly - as the talk says, most modern processors have a bunch because it's impossible to test every possible edge case a priori.
(Good recent examples include the AMD lockup bug that Matt Dillon found, and the nasty counter-example of the Intel Quark segfault bug, which can't be worked around so easily because the Quark doesn't have killbits. "Oops.")
- wyager 11y ago>most modern processors have a bunch because it's impossible to test every possible edge case a priori. Only with the sort of engineering most current CPU manufacturers use. It's possible to have formally verified hardware; it's just expensive with current tech. Tools are improving, though. I suspect the next cutting edge will be the unification of functional-language-to-hardware compilers like Clash or Lambda-CCC with fully dependent languages like Agda or Idris, where you can statically verify arbitrary properties though the type system.
- throwupper247 11y agoI've just written an Idris programm that determined "your mothers phone number", hows that for arbitrary facts? (tip of the hat to xkcd.)