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List:       freebsd-advocacy
Subject:    Re: i386 do not support i386
From:       John Baldwin <jhb () freebsd ! org>
Date:       2005-11-28 13:18:45
Message-ID: 200511280818.46625.jhb () freebsd ! org
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On Friday 25 November 2005 08:57 am, Rostislav Krasny wrote:
> > FreeBSD 6.0R don't support 386 processors according to the release
> > notes, maybe it's time to change the name of the i386 platform to the
> > x86 platform.
>
> 16-bit 8086, 8088, 80186 and 80286 are x86 processors too. 80386 was
> the first 32-bit processor from Intel, and it had many other
> significant architectural changes. I believe the i386 architecture
> name is righteous for 80386 successors, even without the 80386
> particular support. That's just my IMHO.

Agreed, especially when you consider the amd64 processors which are also known 
as x86-64 and thus 'x86'.  In fact, on NetBSD, they put code shared between 
NetBSD/i386 and NetBSD/x86-64 in sys/arch/x86, and FreeBSD may someday do the 
same with a sys/x86 containing files shared between sys/i386 and sys/amd64 
(but don't hold your breath. :) )

-- 
John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve"  =  http://www.FreeBSD.org
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