Re: Athlon 550

[Steven W Orr <steveo at world dot std dot com>]

I believe that as early as the 386, the processors were considered to be
64 bit. This does not mean that the registers are 64 bits wide, just that
they are capable of supporting a virtual addresspace of 64 bits.

-- 
----------Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana.----------------
--------Stranger things have happened but none stranger than this.-------------
Steven W. Orr      steveo@world.std.com     <site of former bang addr:-)>
---------------"Listen to me! We are all individuals."-------------------------

On Tue, 14 Dec 1999, Joe Buck wrote:

=>
=>> 	I have just purchased this CPU (I am very very pleased with it), I
=>> have documention from AMD saying that this is a 64bit cpu.
=>
=>Only for marketing-spin meanings of "64 bit CPU".  It implements the
=>Intel x86 instruction set, which is a 32-bit instruction set.
=>
=>In fairness to AMD, I can't find any claims that the Athlon is a 64-bit
=>CPU on their web site.
=>
=>> The main reason for this mail, is
=>> to ask the compiler that I built from gcc-2.95-2 x86 is a 32bit
=>> compiler?
=>
=>Yes.
=>
=>> And if I was to get the source for the alpha version of the
=>> same compiler, would that work better than the x86 version?
=>
=>It wouldn't work at all, as the Alpha instruction set has nothing to
=>do with the Athlon.
=>