Re: 32/64 bit ... downloading install images
On 10/04/2014 11:25 AM, John Hasler wrote:
> Harry Putnam writes:
>> So the unwary reader is led to believe that amd means an architecture
>> different from `pc'.
>
> "pc" doesn't mean an architecture.
>
This is probably not much help to the person who provoked the question.
"PC" normally means a computer having an Intel or AMD processor, and
capable of running DOS, Windows, Linux, and some Unix's. It would be
applied to a desktop or laptop computer, not a mainframe, which also
might run those operating systems.
As opposed to "MAC" which is a computer designed to run Apple Macintosh software.
Computers that run other systems are usually named specifically, like PDP-11, etc.
"Architecture" means the way the individual blocks of the computer are connected,
as well as the hard-coded instructions that tell the blocks what to do, and how to
do it. This would include the input/output connections, etc. You need a particular
architecture to run Windows, for instance, and a slightly different architecture
to run the old Apple software. (OS-X could probably be made to run on a "PC,"
since it is very similar to a Unix variant called BCD.)
Hope that helps.
--doug
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