Peeve: why "i386"?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday,  5 June 2003 at 16:52:17 -0400, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> Why do all the BSDs continue to refer to the 32 bit Intel architecture
> as i386 even when they typically won't even install on an i386 any
> more?

There's a difference between the i386 architecture, which is still
going strong, and the Intel 80386 processor, which is obsolete for
normal applications.

> Why not call it x86, or ia32, if not in the kernel config then at
> least in the release notes and documentation, 

There are so many places in the sources which use the name that it
would be very difficult.  And the name is still correct, more correct
than x86.

> as everyone else has been doing for years?

They have?  I hadn't noticed.

Greg
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