Talk:List of former IA-32 compatible processor manufacturers

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Is this a list of former IA-32 compatible manufacturers, or former x86 compatible manufacturers?

This article lists, in the "Product discontinued/transformed" section, vendors who supplied 8086-compatible and 80286-compatible processors; those were not IA-32 processors, they were "IA-16" processors.

Is the intent to list all former x86 manufacturers, or just those who made 32-bit processors? Guy Harris (talk) 19:34, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, here, you confused again, and never ever made clear those terms. The Intel IA-32 architecture processors include early 16-bit processors, such as 8086/8088, 80186 and 80286. Those 16-bit enhanced processors are the early IA-32 processors. There is nothing like Intel IA-16, it does not exist at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.53.111.113 (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

100% wrong. If you believe that the 8086 is an IA-32 processor, you have absolutely no clue whatsoever what IA-32 is, or even what the "32" stands for there. Guy Harris (talk) 16:59, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Intel are themselves a bit confused on this. See Chapter 2 of Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 1: Basic Architecture, which says:

The IA-32 architecture family was preceded by 16-bit processors, the 8086 and 8088.

which indicates that they aren't IA-32 processors, but also say

The 8086/8088 introduced segmentation to the IA-32 architecture.

which speaks of them as if they were. (Of course, saying the 8086 "introduced" anything to the instruction set architecture is a bit odd, given that the x86 ISA didn't exist before the 8086, so that part of the manual really could have used a technical editor.) Guy Harris (talk) 17:51, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, you confused yourself. Those enhanced 16-bit processors are the early IA-32 processors, and are belong to IA-32 processors. Those processors which enables Intel 64 are also IA-32 processors, including today's Intel Core i7. They are all the IA-32 processors. As to this information, you can also find clues on those Intel Official documents. The reason is obvious that Intel all the time treat the AMD64 architecture as an extension of IA-32 architecture, rather than a standalone one. so early 16-bit processor even does not support 32-bit general computing, but they are IA-32 processors; likewise, even though those Intel 64 processors could manipulate 64-bit general computing and use another similar 64-bit Instruction Set, but Intel intentionally treat them as enhanced IA-32 processors. Or in other words of your fellows, Intel treat 8086/8088, 80186 and 80286 as the 16-bit version of IA-32 processors, and Intel 64 processors as 64-bit version of IA-32 processors too. Intel never made any mistake on their documents, and this not a misleading, just a very different view towards things made by themselves.

This article stands on the side of Intel product, and Intel is the inventor and creator of the architecture of IA-32. Those clones are intentionally designed to be compatible with software and hardware designed for Intel processors. So the term, IA-32, used here are definitely exact as what they represent. On the other hand, x86, is a neutral term, those clone processors are the x86 processors; but this article does really emphasise the Intel product. x86-64 or AMD64 is designed by AMD/DEC Alpha, rather than Intel, and Intel should not call their Intel 64 processors as clones of AMD64. Because AMD64 essentially are also the clones of Intel IA-32 processors. This paradox enables Intel switch their focus from architecture design to the design of core of processors, without losing their fame on the de-facto processor king.