I'm using the earliest known free version of Microsoft Visual C++ called Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003. It has only the command line compiler/linker. No IDE or GUI interface of any kind. In its help documentation (which you can get by typing the command line "cl.exe /help") it indicates that the command line switch /Oi should enable intrinsic functions. That is, for example when trying to use the sin function, instead of looking in the static library LIBC.lib (or dynamic library MSVCRT.dll) for the _sin function, it is supposed to insert the x87 fsin instruction directly into the compiled code. This way it supposedly prevents dependency on any C library file, by directly inserting any available machine code instructions directly into the compiled code, in order to accomplish the same task. However, what I'm finding is that it instead is giving me the runarround, by refusing to use actual intrinsics. Instead it inserts a call to the function _CIsin in the code. And guess what, _CIsin is just another library function that simulates the use of the intrinsic fsin assembly instruction. I would like to do as much as possible to use intrinsics to separate my compiled program from the C library. And it seems MSVC++2003 isn't letting me do that.

What is the earliest known version of MSVC++ that truly inserts intrinsic CPU/FPU instructions into the compiled code when use of intrinsic instructions is requested by the command line /Oi switch?