Here is an email from an AMD rep posted on the x86-64 developer mailing list. B. --- Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 11:56:56 -0700 From: marc.miller@amd.com To: discuss@x86-64.org Subject: [discuss] From AMD -- RE: [discuss] x86_64 -> amd64 renaming? All, You're correct, AMD is trying to minimize use of x86-64 (and K8) wherever possible, in favor of AMD64 (yes, we AMD'ers do like to shout our name ;) ). We also realize that x86_64 is such an integrated part of the kernel, compiler, and other core components that it can never completely go away. AMD would love to see amd64 become an alias to x86-64 and x86_64, so that when someone compiles with, e.g., gcc --ARCH=AMD64 (or amd64 if you prefer), they'll get the same binaries they would if they used --ARCH=x86_64, K8, or anything else used in the past. Going forward, we expect our future products to be AMD64 family products. Anything that uses 64-bit AMD64 instructions will fall into the AMD64 class of products. Man pages should avoid using x86-64 and use AMD64 instead. Make no mistake, the old terminology of x86-64 should still work to retain backward compatibility with all of the AMD64 code developed over the past three years. We just want to avoid confusion for all of the people who will learn about x86-64 for the first time long after no one remembers that we used to call the instruction set x86-64. I recently taught a teenager what a 386 (and thus the architecture name i386) refers to. All of the people reading our spec sheets for the first time today (and in the future) won't know what x86-64 is. Corrrect usage of the term AMD64 is on <http://www.amd.com> as noted elsewhere on this thread, which includes examples of correct and incorrect usage. Marc J. Miller Strategic Alliance Manager Strategic Technology & Alliances Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. <http://www.amd.com/> Desk: (408) 749-3325 Mobile: (408) 425-4017 marc.miller@amd.com -- WebSig: http://www.jukie.net/~bart/sig/
Attachment:
pgpCrDF85bopn.pgp
Description: PGP signature