Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 11:56:56 -0700
From: marc.miller@amd.com
To: discuss@x86-64.org
Subject: From AMD -- RE: x86_64 -> amd64 renaming?

All,

You're correct, AMD is trying to minimize use of x86-64 (and K8)
wherever possible, in favor of AMD64 (yes, we AMD'ers do like to shout
our name ;) ).  We also realize that x86_64 is such an integrated part
of the kernel, compiler, and other core components that it can never
completely go away.  AMD would love to see amd64 become an alias to
x86-64 and x86_64, so that when someone compiles with, e.g., gcc
--ARCH=AMD64 (or amd64 if you prefer), they'll get the same binaries
they would if they used --ARCH=x86_64, K8, or anything else used in the
past.  Going forward, we expect our future products to be AMD64 family
products.  Anything that uses 64-bit AMD64 instructions will fall into
the AMD64 class of products.  Man pages should avoid using x86-64 and
use AMD64 instead.  

Make no mistake, the old terminology of x86-64 should still work to
retain backward compatibility with all of the AMD64 code developed over
the past three years.  We just want to avoid confusion for all of the
people who will learn about x86-64 for the first time long after no one
remembers that we used to call the instruction set x86-64.  I recently
taught a teenager what a 386 (and thus the architecture name i386)
refers to.  All of the people reading our spec sheets for the first time
today (and in the future) won't know what x86-64 is.  

Corrrect usage of the term AMD64 is on http://www.amd.com as noted
elsewhere on this thread, which includes examples of correct and
incorrect usage.

Marc J. Miller
Strategic Alliance Manager
Strategic Technology & Alliances
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. http://www.amd.com
Desk: (408) 749-3325
Mobile: (408) 425-4017
marc.miller@amd.com