On Sat, 2006-05-27 at 12:21 -0400, suse@rio.vg wrote:
x86_64 (sometimes called AMD64) is AMD's 64bit extension to ix86. ia64 is only for Intel's Itanium machines, which are obscenely expensive and quite rare. (And, as I understand it, Intel has dropped them and recently started using x86_64 for some of its' new processors, but they call it EM64T in order to save face.)
The IA-64 ISA is alive and well. Itanium3 should be out shortly. It adapts many Digital Alpha designs. IA-64 was a joint design by HP and Intel, replacing the PA-RISC and x86. Unfortunately, it was a CS ideal that didn't work out well in silicon, as most of the engineers at Digital Semiconductor predicted it would flop (long story). E.g., Digital's binary translation software is now being used for IA-64's x86 support -- because its hardware is _slower_. x86-64 is AMD's ISA, also called AMD64. Intel calls its subset implementation of x86-64 as IA-32e, also called EM64T. Intel cannot implement many select portions of the full x86-64 ISA -- largely those dealing with AMD's system interconnect and I/O capability (long story). -- Bryan J. Smith Professional, technical annoyance mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ----------------------------------------------------------- Americans don't get upset because citizens in some foreign nations can burn the American flag -- Americans get upset because citizens in those same nations can't burn their own