[Python-Dev] Fwd: Download Page - AMD64 (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Wed Jan 13 00:28:14 CET 2010

I presume the email below is about the Windows binary. Does the AMD64 release work on intel 64bit and can we make the wording clearer on the download page?

"intel 64bit" is as clear as mud. It could mean the "Intel 64" architecture, or it could mean the "IA-64" architecture, both are 64-bit architectures with processors manufactured by Intel. The former is officially called AMD64 (not by Intel, but officially), and our AMD64 binaries run on such processors. The latter is also called "Itanium", and we stopped producing binaries for that architecture a while ago; the AMD64 binaries will not run on it.

The wording could probably be changed to match the reader's expectation more, most likely, it would also get more incorrect in the process. To make it correct and explicit, an entire paragraph educating users about 64-bit architectures and that there are many of them and that they are mutually incompatible might be required.

Most likely, Thomas' processor implements the AMD64 architecture, even though it is manufactured by Intel. A short sentence that he would probably understand (given that he used "Intel 64", not "64bit") is:

"""The binaries for AMD64 will also work on processors that implement the Intel 64 architecture (formerly EM64T), i.e. the architecture that Microsoft calls x64, and AMD called x86-64 before calling it AMD64. They will not work on Intel Itanium Processors (formerly IA-64)."""

Regards, Martin

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