On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 3:23 PM, H.J. Lu <hjl.to...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > ia32 is confusing because ia64 (a well known term) sounds related but >>> > can't be farther away from it, and it's also vendor specific. Our >>> > traditional i386 seems better to me (although it has its own problems, >>> > but I'm not aware of any better abbreviation in the wild that's vendor >>> > neutral and specifically means the 32bit incarnation of the x86 >>> > architecture). >>> > >>> >>> The problem with i386 is it is a real processor. When someone says >>> i386, it isn't clear if it means the processor or 32-bit x86. >> >> That's what I meant with its own problems :) But ia32 seems worse to me >> than this IMO. >> > > At least, IA-32 is clear, although IA-64 may be confusing :-). FWIW, > i386 is also vendor specific. Wikipedia agrees [1]: --q-- IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", sometimes also called i386[1][2] through metonymy)[3] is the third generation of the x86 architecture, first implemented in the Intel 80386 microprocessors in 1985. It was the first incarnation of x86 to support 32-bit computing.[4] As such, "IA-32" may be used as a metonym to refer to all x86 versions that support 32-bit computing.[5][6] --/q-- IMO, comparing IA-32 and i386, IA-32 looks better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-32 Uros.
