3 ms·
> The people who designed it call it AMD64. Let's call it that. They originally called it "x86-64". Recycling a comment of mine from 4 months ago (https://news
by cesarb 6y ago
> The people who designed it call it AMD64. Let's call it that.
They originally called it "x86-64". Recycling a comment of mine from 4 months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22282127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22282127):
The "x86-64" name is the original one, and came from AMD themselves: https://web.archive.org/web/20000817071303/http://www.amd.com/news/corppr/20152.html https://web.archive.org/web/20000817071303/http://www.amd.co... (and "x86_64" is obviously an alias for where a hyphen is not an allowed character, like identifiers on many programming languages).
The "x64" name came from Microsoft, probably due to file name length limitations (this was before Windows XP unified the Windows 9x and Windows NT lines).
IIRC, the "AMD64" name came later, probably to distinguish it better from Intel's IA-64 (Itanium).
- WalterGR 6y agoWindows 9x had long file name support. If we’re speculating, my guess is that they chose “x64” for symmetry with “x32”. Or woodruffw’s suggestion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23513591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23513591
- chrisseaton 6y ago> my guess is that they chose “x64” for symmetry with “x32” x32 only came out around 2011. It's younger than x64 which came out around 2003, so that can't possibly be the case.
- WalterGR 6y agoMakes sense. What do you mean by it “came out”? Looks like “x32” was used at least as far back as 2009: http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/office-2010-x64-bit-qu-t1914261.html http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/office-2010-x64-bit-qu-t191... . Not much earlier than 2011, but just FYI.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> What do you mean by it “came out”? It was announced in August 2011, that's when the code was shown for the first time. https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/8/26/415 https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/8/26/415 > Looks like “x32” was used at least as far back as 2009: http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/office-2010-x64-bit-qu-t191.. http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/office-2010-x64-bit-qu-t191.... . This is a great example because that person is confused by these terrible names - they've seen the name x64, and they assume there must be an x32... but there wasn't, back in 2009. They mean 32-bit x86, which is not the same thing as x32.
- WalterGR 6y agoWe’re talking about different things. I’m talking about people using “x32” to refer to x86. Hence my confusion about “x32” “coming out”.