Classification of Today's PCs

[us3rnotfound]

I was wondering, how would we call all of our PCs today? Here's a quote from Linus Torvalds:

Linus Benedict Torvalds

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons, among other things)...Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes — it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable [sic] (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

he called the machine he was developing an experimental OS on the Intel 386. Okay well today people are on AMD and Intel platforms primarily. What would I call most PCs today? Just X64 Amd/Intel based?

Edit: Just as another example that fed my curiosity was the Motorola 68000 series machines that predated the 386/486. Thanks!

 

[bwanaaa]

yes. the architecture also is specific to the assembly language used. I assume that he used some assembly and that's why it was limited to x32 architecture then. (286/386/486/586/686)

 

[Oyeve]

I always assumed x86.

 

[Eelectricity]

x86 is the most often used generic term. And it can refer to either 32 or 64-bit. But sometimes people differentiate. Like x86_64 or amd64 which are the same in most contexts.

FYI I think support for 386 has been removed from recent 4.x kernels.