By: James (no.delete@this.thanks.invalid), May 10, 2007 1:27 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Linus Torvalds wrote:
>There really is no good reason not to just call
>it x86-64. Anything else just tends to have obvious issues
>that make it impractical. Either it's stupid political
>issues with company names ("Intel 64"? Who the hell do
>they think they are kidding?), or it's just idiotic and
>clearly misleading (x64 - see the thread just here on why
>that name sucks).
I'm surprised to hear you say that, Linus, since I always quote you when I explain why "ex-eight-six-sixty-four" sucks as a name!
> 386BSD made the mistake of putting a lot of numbers and
> weird abbreviations into the name, and is scaring away a
> lot of people just because it sounds too technical.
(Linus Torvalds, sometime before 1994)
There will have to be a 64 bit transition on the user desktop over the next few years, and end-users will actually need to care about 64 bit mode (as in "can their system handle it"). Most end-users have forgotten about 386s and 486s, so "x86" makes no sense to them.
Of course, that doesn't mean that any of the other names that have been put forward are much better. x64, notwithstanding people's inability to see the x, is at least fairly simple.
Maybe something like "Delta" or "Sigma" would have been better...
>There really is no good reason not to just call
>it x86-64. Anything else just tends to have obvious issues
>that make it impractical. Either it's stupid political
>issues with company names ("Intel 64"? Who the hell do
>they think they are kidding?), or it's just idiotic and
>clearly misleading (x64 - see the thread just here on why
>that name sucks).
I'm surprised to hear you say that, Linus, since I always quote you when I explain why "ex-eight-six-sixty-four" sucks as a name!
> 386BSD made the mistake of putting a lot of numbers and
> weird abbreviations into the name, and is scaring away a
> lot of people just because it sounds too technical.
(Linus Torvalds, sometime before 1994)
There will have to be a 64 bit transition on the user desktop over the next few years, and end-users will actually need to care about 64 bit mode (as in "can their system handle it"). Most end-users have forgotten about 386s and 486s, so "x86" makes no sense to them.
Of course, that doesn't mean that any of the other names that have been put forward are much better. x64, notwithstanding people's inability to see the x, is at least fairly simple.
Maybe something like "Delta" or "Sigma" would have been better...
Topic | Posted By | Date |
---|---|---|
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Rock/Tukwila rumors | Dean Kent | 2007/05/05 02:35 PM |
K8 vs Win64 timeline | anonymous | 2007/05/05 05:19 PM |
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Rock | Daniel Bizó | 2007/05/06 01:34 AM |
Rock | Dean Kent | 2007/05/06 06:11 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Joe | 2007/05/06 10:24 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Dean Kent | 2007/05/06 10:49 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/06 11:09 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | anon | 2007/05/07 12:32 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Rakesh Malik | 2007/05/07 08:36 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Michael S | 2007/05/07 09:06 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | anon | 2007/05/07 08:48 PM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Rakesh Malik | 2007/05/08 05:45 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | anon | 2007/05/08 04:30 PM |
Wow. (nt) | Brannon | 2007/05/08 05:16 PM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | rwessel | 2007/05/08 08:48 PM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | JS | 2007/05/08 09:07 PM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | JS | 2007/05/09 05:44 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | Rakesh Malik | 2007/05/09 04:35 AM |
Much ado about x | Michael S | 2007/05/09 08:39 AM |
Call it x86-64 | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/09 09:27 AM |
(i)AMD64 | Michael S | 2007/05/09 11:16 AM |
(i)AMD64 | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/09 11:29 AM |
(i)AMD64 | Groo | 2007/05/09 03:45 PM |
TIFNAA | anonymous | 2007/05/09 04:49 PM |
Inspired by FYR Macedonia? (NT) | Michael S | 2007/05/09 10:21 PM |
More likely... | rwessel | 2007/05/09 11:39 PM |
TIFNAA | Gabriele Svelto | 2007/05/09 10:57 PM |
(i)AMD64 | James | 2007/05/10 01:27 AM |
i86 | Dean Kent | 2007/05/09 11:30 AM |
(i)AMD64 | Max | 2007/05/09 12:28 PM |
wide86? long86? | hobold | 2007/05/10 04:05 AM |
x87 perhaps, it is one more. :) (NT) | Groo | 2007/05/10 04:50 AM |
x86+ | Dean Kent | 2007/05/10 07:44 AM |
Does it really matter? | Doug Siebert | 2007/05/10 08:10 AM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Marcin Niewiadomski | 2007/05/10 10:50 AM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Dean Kent | 2007/05/11 05:11 AM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | rwessel | 2007/05/11 01:46 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Dean Kent | 2007/05/11 05:03 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Michael S | 2007/05/12 09:49 AM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Dean Kent | 2007/05/12 12:05 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Michael S | 2007/05/12 12:25 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Dean Kent | 2007/05/12 02:39 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | JasonB | 2007/05/13 06:43 AM |
client consolidation | Michael S | 2007/05/13 07:37 AM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/13 02:44 PM |
let's stay with x86-64 for now, please | rwessel | 2007/05/14 01:42 PM |
What's your point? | Doug Siebert | 2007/05/11 01:56 PM |
What's your point? | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/11 03:15 PM |
What's your point? | Doug Siebert | 2007/05/13 02:11 PM |
What's your point? | Dean Kent | 2007/05/13 06:04 PM |
What's your point? | JasonB | 2007/05/14 01:06 AM |
What's your point? | Dean Kent | 2007/05/14 06:20 AM |
What's your point? | JasonB | 2007/05/14 03:35 PM |
What's your point? | JasonB | 2007/05/14 06:35 PM |
What's your point? | Dean Kent | 2007/05/14 07:12 PM |
What's your point? | Dean Kent | 2007/05/11 05:06 PM |
What's your point? | Stephen H | 2007/05/13 12:55 AM |
Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE? | David W. Hess | 2007/05/13 07:37 AM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/13 09:20 AM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | Dean Kent | 2007/05/13 09:49 AM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | David W. Hess | 2007/05/13 11:37 AM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/13 12:44 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | S. Rao | 2007/05/13 02:00 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/13 04:32 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | S. Rao | 2007/05/13 11:19 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/13 02:46 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/13 04:23 PM |
> 1 GB RAM on a 32-bit system | JasonB | 2007/05/13 05:37 PM |
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Windows manages memory differently | JasonB | 2007/05/14 12:50 AM |
Windows manages memory differently | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/14 07:56 AM |
Windows manages memory differently | rwessel | 2007/05/14 02:40 PM |
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Windows manages memory differently | rwessel | 2007/05/14 03:51 PM |
Windows manages memory differently | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/14 04:40 PM |
Windows manages memory differently | rwessel | 2007/05/14 05:09 PM |
Windows manages memory differently | Howard Chu | 2007/05/14 10:17 AM |
Windows manages memory differently | Jukka Larja | 2007/05/14 10:30 AM |
Windows manages memory differently | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/14 12:54 PM |
Windows manages memory differently | Howard Chu | 2007/05/15 02:35 AM |
Windows manages memory differently | Groo | 2007/05/15 06:34 AM |
Anyone know what OS X (10.4, Intel, desktop) does? | Matt Sayler | 2007/05/15 05:23 AM |
Anyone know what OS X (10.4, Intel, desktop) does? | Wes Felter | 2007/05/15 07:37 AM |
Anyone know what OS X (10.4, Intel, desktop) does? | Anonymous | 2007/05/15 09:49 AM |
Anyone know what OS X (10.4, Intel, desktop) does? | anon2 | 2007/05/15 06:13 PM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | Paul | 2007/05/13 02:40 PM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | Peter Arremann | 2007/05/13 04:38 PM |
PAE sucks (Why didn't MS take advantage of PAE?) | Henrik S | 2007/05/14 02:31 AM |
The fragility of your argument | slacker | 2007/05/13 02:56 PM |
The fragility of your argument | nick | 2007/05/13 04:42 PM |
The fragility of your argument | Howard Chu | 2007/05/14 01:52 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Dean Kent | 2007/05/14 08:19 AM |
The fragility of your argument | anon2 | 2007/05/14 07:26 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Tzvetan Mikov | 2007/05/14 08:01 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Dean Kent | 2007/05/14 08:16 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Linus Torvalds | 2007/05/14 10:57 AM |
The fragility of your argument | JasonB | 2007/05/14 03:48 PM |
The fragility of your argument | Dean Kent | 2007/05/14 06:36 PM |
The fragility of your argument | Ricardo B | 2007/05/16 01:40 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Dean Kent | 2007/05/16 02:32 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Ricardo B | 2007/05/16 05:41 AM |
PS | Ricardo B | 2007/05/16 05:50 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Dean Kent | 2007/05/16 08:07 AM |
Modern web browsing | S. Rao | 2007/05/16 08:16 AM |
Aha! | Dean Kent | 2007/05/16 08:27 AM |
Aha! | Dean Kent | 2007/05/16 08:32 AM |
Aha! | S. Rao | 2007/05/16 09:34 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Ricardo B | 2007/05/16 09:00 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Vincent Diepeveen | 2007/05/16 09:10 AM |
The fragility of your argument | Paul | 2007/05/16 02:01 PM |
The fragility of your argument | Vincent Diepeveen | 2007/05/17 02:05 AM |
The fragility of your argument | anon2 | 2007/05/15 12:35 AM |
Splits vs page allocations? | Matt Sayler | 2007/05/15 06:33 AM |
What's your point? | Michael S | 2007/05/13 07:55 AM |
What's your point? | anonymous | 2007/05/13 10:08 AM |
What's your point? | Michael S | 2007/05/13 10:31 AM |
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Rock/Tukwila rumors | IntelUser2000 | 2007/05/06 01:27 PM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | m | 2007/05/13 07:05 AM |
Rock/Tukwila rumors | mas | 2007/05/15 08:40 AM |