I know that Intel's chips have assembly instructions that will only work on their CPUs, and same with other processor companies. I'm wondering if there does happen to be a standard that every processor supports. Another question that would go along with this is, will compilers like MSVC++ compile applications with assembly code that won't work on some CPUs? --- a total stranger one black day knocked living the hell out of me-- who found forgiveness hard because my(as it happened)self he was -but now that fiend and i are such immortal friends the other's each - e. e. cummings Edited by - Densun on 3/7/00 7:43:16 PM

All x86 processors support x86 assembler. That means 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, etc. MSVC++ can only compile x86 code (as far as I know), and therefore can only be distributed among x86 PCs.

Ps - AMD processors also use the x86 instruction set, and there might even be more processor companies that support it, but I''m not sure.

Hey, the x86 isn''t a processor but a family of processors including the 286, 386, 486 etc... now any code written for a 286 will run on a 286 or 386 or anything higher... same with 386 code.. in other words each chip includes new features, but they are all backwards compatible, all 486''s run all previous code no matter what company created them (AMD intel, cytix) ... right now it is the standard to write for 386 assembly because of the 32 bit regesters and the seeming lack of any 286 processors left.. anyway where you get into trouble then is MMX, SIMD and such.. which may or may not be on a given processor.. so unless you are pretty sure your users will have them, just don''t use MMX or SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instructions... but 386 assembly is protable to any win98 machine (it is in the minimum requirements).

Hope this helps,
RanXacT