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One thing I find annoying about x86 virtualisation is that it already has a mode called V86, introduced in the 386, but instead of extending that with more functionality, they introduced yet another set of instructions, and of course AMD also has its own completely incompatible way to do virtualisation. The nice thing about V86 is it integrates well with the existing task-segment model.

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> AMD also has its own completely incompatible way to do virtualisation.

You have this reversed: AMD developed x64-64 virt, and Intel decided to go their own way.

But VT-x was released November 2005 and AMD-V released May 2006?

hi userbinator :) isn't the purpose of virtual 8086 mode somewhat different? i.e. to run real mode applications while the cpu is in protected mode? or did you mean that virtual 8086 could be generalised into a wider virtualisation system?

or did you mean at virtual 8086 could be generalised into a wider virtualisation system?

Yes, if you look at the way V86 is implemented, it wouldn't be too hard to extend it to full virtualisation --- something like a "VMX mode task" would've been ideal.

i see, makes sense. may be a different team from V86 worked on it? Conways law :)

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