On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Sandra Loosemore <san...@codesourcery.com> wrote: > On 01/20/2015 08:11 AM, Michael Matz wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> On Tue, 20 Jan 2015, Uros Bizjak wrote: >> >>>> At least, IA-32 is clear, although IA-64 may be confusing :-). FWIW, >>>> i386 is also vendor specific. >>> >>> >>> Wikipedia agrees [1]: >> >> >> I wouldn't use a wikipedia article that only cites sources from after 2008 >> (and most of them actually after the after-the-fact invention of "ia32") >> for an architecture that exists since 1985 as sensible source for >> supporting either point of view ;-) It totally lacks references to >> config.guess which IMHO is a much better source of "how to call an >> architecture" :) > > > I brought up the Wikipedia names in my initial query because I presume the > Wikipedians have already fought the battle over what color to paint this > particular bikeshed. :-) > > FWIW, I was employed at Intel back in the 2001-2003 timeframe and my vague > recollection was that it was during that time that they started promoting > "IA-32" as the official name for the 32-bit x86 architecture, as a branding > thing to better promote their own "IA-64" architecture as its 64-bit > successor rather than AMD's "x86-64". So certainly a lot of the confusion > arises because the 32-bit x86 architecture was around under other names long > before Intel re-named it. > > Since there seems to be arguments against using both "IA-32" and "i386" for > the 32-bit x86 architecture, how about, uh, "32-bit x86"? With the other > names in parentheses where appropriate? I think we could also ignore the > 16-bit x86 variants for the purposes of GCC and just use "x86" instead of > "i386 and x86-64". >
Please don't invent a new name. It may confuse people. -- H.J.
