Determination of Processor Type
Testing if certain bits in the FLAGS register are changeable allows determining what kind of processor is installed. For example, the alignment flag can only be changed on the 486 and above, so if it can be changed then the CPU is a 486 or higher. These methods of processor detection were made obsolete by the CPUID instruction, which was first included in the Intel Pentium.
Read more about this topic: FLAGS Register (computing)
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