Sets the operating mode of the 80287 to Protected Virtual-Address mode. When the 80287 is first initialized following hardware RESET, it operates in Real-Address mode, just as does the 80286 CPU. Once the 80287 NPX has been set into Protected mode, only a hardware RESET can return the NPX to operation in Real-Address mode.
When the 80287 operates in Protected mode, the NPX exception pointers are represented differently than they are in Real-Address mode (see the FSAVE and FSTENV instructions). This distinction is evident primarily to writers of numeric exception handlers, however. For general application programmers, the operating mode of the 80287 need not be a concern.