On 10/04/2014 11:25 AM, John Hasler wrote: > Harry Putnam writes: >> So the unwary reader is led to believe that amd means an architecture >> different from `pc'. > > "pc" doesn't mean an architecture. > This is probably not much help to the person who provoked the question.
"PC" normally means a computer having an Intel or AMD processor, and capable of running DOS, Windows, Linux, and some Unix's. It would be applied to a desktop or laptop computer, not a mainframe, which also might run those operating systems. As opposed to "MAC" which is a computer designed to run Apple Macintosh software. Computers that run other systems are usually named specifically, like PDP-11, etc. "Architecture" means the way the individual blocks of the computer are connected, as well as the hard-coded instructions that tell the blocks what to do, and how to do it. This would include the input/output connections, etc. You need a particular architecture to run Windows, for instance, and a slightly different architecture to run the old Apple software. (OS-X could probably be made to run on a "PC," since it is very similar to a Unix variant called BCD.) Hope that helps. --doug -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/543056fd.3040...@optonline.net
