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Date:      Fri, 17 Nov 2000 12:53:52 +0200 (SAT)
From:      John Hay <jhay@icomtek.csir.co.za>
To:        mark@grondar.za (Mark Murray)
Cc:        arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: new monotime() call for all architectures.
Message-ID:  <200011171053.eAHArq488675@zibbi.icomtek.csir.co.za>
In-Reply-To: <200011170655.eAH6tCJ05746@gratis.grondar.za> from Mark Murray at "Nov 17, 2000 08:55:04 am"

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> 
> I need a fast-as-possible "time" inside the kernel to help
> speed up the /dev/random device. I say "time", because although
> it needs to be a function of time (preferably accurate and linear),
> it has no need whatsoever to be "real time", so a simple counter
> is quite OK.
> 
> Pentiums, Alphas and IA64's all have a suitable register on chip,
> while I have to make do with nanotime(9) on i386 and i486.
> 
> I have prepared a monotime(9) call for the i386, alpha and ia64
> architectures (patch enclosed). I have been running this for a
> week or two now with promising results (on a Pentium). With
> the exception of the minimum of "glue" (and nanotime on older
> architectures), these functions reduce to one instruction.
> 

Are you sure it will work on SMP machines? There is nothing that
synchronizes the onboard counters. Or will your code stay on one
cpu?

John
-- 
John Hay -- John.Hay@icomtek.csir.co.za


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