Talk:IA-32

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[edit] Qualitative vs. Quantitative Measurements

Okay, here's how it goes... "amount" is a QUALITATIVE measurement, meaning that you use the term "amount" when that of which you are speaking cannot be broken down into single numbers (like sand, you cannot have one sand, or three sands, you have a lot of or a little bit of sand). When that of which you are speaking can be spoken of in individual units, you use a QUANTITATIVE measurement (six dollars, five cats, one idiot who doesn't know basic English grammar), thus you would use the word number or other such logos. To put it plainly You do not have an AMOUNT of countable objects, you have a number.. I see this 6th grade error all the time on Wikipedia and it gets rather frustrating to realise that people can't even use their own language correctly. Why can't the English teach their children how to speak (or write, for that matter)?

[edit] TODO

  • 32-bit Mode Instructions
  • Instruction Explainations
  • Maybe links to assembler examples?
  • Links to other architectures (IA16, PPC, 68000)
  • Explaination of CISC (maybe a compairison to RISC?)
  • Explaination of IA32/Pentuim/MMX/SSE features (Pipelining, MultiThreading, Protected Mode, etc...)
  • Maybe differences between x86 assembler language and 68000 assembler language?
Robert Lee 10:37 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)
CISC is already explained on the Complex Instruction Set Computer page, to which CISC redirects, just as RISC is explained on the RISC page. Guy Harris 00:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revamping X86 and IA-32 articles

I plan on making some major changes to the contents of both the X86 and the IA-32 articles, to eliminate most of the overlap between them. I plan to make X86 the general overview of the architecture, with shorter technical descriptions, and more historical descriptives. For technical info, I will let the X86 link to the IA-32 (and also other articles) for more details. I will make IA-32 the more technical-oriented article, at least for the 32-bit side of this architecture. I will also let the X86 make links to the AMD64 article for the 64-bit technical details of this architecture.

---ykhan 05:29, 2004 May 3 (UTC)

Would it be better to merge and redirect? 84.93.243.76 09:55, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

ykhan's comments indicate why X86 and IA-32 would be separate - X86 is for a general and historical overview (see, for example, the IBM POWER and PowerPC pages), while IA-32 is for technical details of the 32-bit version of that architecture. I just added to the Apple Macintosh page, in the Hardware section, a note that some Macs now have Intel x86 processors, in the same sentence where it's mentioned that some have PowerPC processors. X86 is the right page to link to, there, as it's a similar page to the PowerPC page. Guy Harris 00:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

What about x86 assembly language? It appears the Department of Redundancy Department has been working overtime here.... Guy Harris 01:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

No —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.17.1.146 (talk • contribs) 22:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC).

I feel ykhan has the best approach; the articles about the platform and the language should refer to each other but be seperate and distinct. --Martyr 13:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

NO!!!

This is a major article, the resulting article would be too damn long if the two were combined

[edit] Post 'AMD64/EM64T/x64 merge' cleanup in this article

It seems to me, after the 'AMD64/EM64T/x64 merge' significant 64-bit information here should be relieved from this article. --Charles Gaudette 20:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I just did it. Please feel free to modify my humble effort as you see fit. Basically, my POV is to treat x86-64 as a new architecture, co-equal to but derived from IA-32. I feel that this is consistent with the treatment of IA-32 as co-equal with but derived from x86. -Arch dude 03:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] This page needs help

This is the IA32 article, but it spends a lot of time saying "IA64 does it [some other way]". Let's avoid IA64 entirely. There's no point.

Also from a technical view, this article's a mess; Virtual Memory doesn't just mean "so you can swap to the hard drive", and the discussion of addressable space doesn't mention ring-map limits or adequately explain PAE. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.196.193.58 (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC).