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Nomenclature: "MIPS32", "MIPS64"

DISCUSSION Kevin D. Kissell 2 participants 2 messages Dec 6, 1999 MIPS

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I note that various people involved in this effort refer to the 32-bit version of the MIPS/Linux port as "MIPS32" and the 64-bit version as
"MIPS64". Thus far, I have not observed those
strings making it into the source repositories, but before they do, there's something I must point out.

"MIPS32" and "MIPS64" have a very specific meaning now, and for all I know are already trademarked/brandmarked/whatever by
MIPS Technologies Inc. to describe the new baseline ISA and privileged resource architecture (CP0, in other words) standards for 32-bit
and 64-bit MIPS devices. It's no big deal
for informal discussion, but *please* do not use the strings "MIPS32" or "MIPS64" in the code or documentation unless you are really and truly referring to MIPS32 and MIPS64
as defined by MIPS. If you want to refer to
the 64-bit versus 32-bit Linux ports, please express it otherwise, e.g. MIPS64bit,
MIPS_64_bit, 64bitMIPS, etc. Otherwise
there is going to be a lot of needless confusion and a further source schism.

Regards,

Kevin K.
__

Kevin D. Kissell
MIPS Technologies European Architecture Lab [email protected]
Tel. +33.4.78.38.70.67
FAX. +33.4.78.38.70.68

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Quoted 9 lines · Kevin D. Kissell

"MIPS32" and "MIPS64" have a very specific meaning now, and for all I know are already trademarked/brandmarked/whatever by
MIPS Technologies Inc. to describe the new baseline ISA and privileged resource architecture (CP0, in other words) standards for 32-bit
and 64-bit MIPS devices. It's no big deal
for informal discussion, but *please* do not use the strings "MIPS32" or "MIPS64" in the

Quoted 8 lines

code or documentation unless you are really and truly referring to MIPS32 and MIPS64
as defined by MIPS. If you want to refer to
the 64-bit versus 32-bit Linux ports, please express it otherwise, e.g. MIPS64bit,
MIPS_64_bit, 64bitMIPS, etc. Otherwise
there is going to be a lot of needless confusion and a further source schism.

The use of these terms is pretty coherent with their meaning as given by Mips, Inc. Linux/MIPS32 is a implementation of Linux (mostly) for MIPS32 processors, Linux/MIPS64 for MIPS64 processors, so I don't see the problem.

Ralf