cvs commit: www/en index.xsl

[David O'Brien]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 11:21:48AM +0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > Maybe if we just called it 'x86-64 compatible' rather than 'amd64 
> > compatible'?
> 
> Calling it "x86-64 compatible" would be plain wrong, this is a former name
> of the AMD's 64-bit architecture.  This is explained in "AMD64 ABI" document
> on www.amd64.org (also available at www.x86-64.org).
> 
> Technically, they two different architectures, AMD's AMD64 (formerly
> known as x86-64) and Intel's EM64T (formerly known as IA-32e).

AMD called it x86-64 in hopes of getting Intel to join in creating and
developing the platform.  By April 22, 2002 Intel was still lying to the
world, saying that they would never produce such a CPU.  So AMD changed
the architecture name to "AMD64".


> While other x86 vendors call their products "x86 or IA-32 compatible",
> Intel's EM64T doesn't claim any compatibility to AMD64: "Intel EM64T
> is an enhancement to Intel IA-32 architecture".  Simply searching for
> "AMD64" on www.intel.com returns nothing.  ;)
..
> Saying only "AMD64 compatible", like David did, would be politically
> correct (now), recognizing the AMD's lead, while saying "AMD64 and
> Intel EM64T compatible" would be more technically correct and convenient
> for our users.  Do we care about politics or our users?

I don't see where we can care more for Intel's users than they do.  If
Intel doesn't want their users to be confused, they should start saying
"AMD64 compatible".  Intel is digging this grave so Take this up with
Intel, not FreeBSD people. 


> While AMD64 and EM64T seem to be compatible at the moment, can anyone
> be certain this will hold forever?  Neither AMD nor Intel claim any
> compatibility to each other.

Yes you can be certain, very certain.  Microsoft gave both Intel and AMD
_one_ 64-bit platform that they would port and support MS-Windows on.
Intel spent it on IA64.  AMD spent theirs on AMD64.  It is Microsoft
Windows that has forced and kept the compatibility in the "ia32" space,
the same will happen in the "amd64" space.

 
> Mentioning both architectures would also be consistent with our own
> AMD64 architecture page, http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64.html,
> and the architecture list on the left of the main web page that says
> "AMD64/EM64T".

I've already fixed that.  The navigation bits list our official platform
names, not all the machine names a platform runs on.

 
> I'm for technical correctness, "AMD64 and Intel EM64T compatible".
> Technically, they are two different architectures, compatible at
> the moment.

They are two different CPU architecture implementation, but are the same
ISA (instruction set architecture), and will remain compatible.
 
-- 
-- David  (obrien at FreeBSD.org)