Re: Intel vs AMD x86-64

Linus Torvalds
2004-02-22T03:07:13Z

On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Herbert Poetzl wrote:
>
> hmm, so the current x86_64 will be changed to x86-64 or
> will there be x86_64 and x86-64?

No. The filesystem policy _tends_ to be that dashes and spaces are turned
into underscores when used as filenames. Don't ask me why (well, the space
part is obvious, since real spaces tend to be a pain to use on the command
line, but don't ask me why people tend to conver a dash to an underscore).

So the real name is (and has always been, as far as I can tell) x86-64.

Actually, I'm a bit disgusted at Intel for not even _mentioning_ AMD in
their documentation or their releases, so I'd almost be inclined to rename
the thing as "AMD64" just to give credit where credit is due. However,
it's just not worth the pain and confusion.

Any Intel people on this list: tell your managers to be f*cking ashamed of
themselves. Just because Intel didn't care about their customers and has
been playing with some other 64-bit architecture that nobody wanted to use
is no excuse for not giving credit to AMD for what they did with x86-64.

(I'm really happy Intel finally got with the program, but it's pretty
petty to not even mention AMD in the documentation and try to make it
look like it was all their idea).

Linus