This is because OS devs (and compiler devs) have suffered them for you. I've run into many x86 bugs, both documented and undocumented. Have you done much assembly?
Usually bugs would involve unlikely sequences of operations or operations in unexpected states. But there have been very serious bugs involving wrong math (Intel Pentium) or cache failures leading to complete crashes (AMD Phenom). These two made it to production and were show-stoppers because OS devs could do very little about them (in the Phenom bug, they could, but with a noticeable performance hit). I don't think I've seen any production CISC chip completely free of bugs. OS devs have to do the testing and the circumventing.
I mean... typically x86 chips have DOZENS of documented bugs.
Usually bugs would involve unlikely sequences of operations or operations in unexpected states. But there have been very serious bugs involving wrong math (Intel Pentium) or cache failures leading to complete crashes (AMD Phenom). These two made it to production and were show-stoppers because OS devs could do very little about them (in the Phenom bug, they could, but with a noticeable performance hit). I don't think I've seen any production CISC chip completely free of bugs. OS devs have to do the testing and the circumventing.
I mean... typically x86 chips have DOZENS of documented bugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Phenom