Is PIII an i686?

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh at mimosa.com
Thu Jun 7 23:01:51 UTC 2007


| From: Knute Johnson <knute at frazmtn.com>
| 
| I've got a Pentium 3 600mhz computer.  Is the P3 chip an i686?

i686 is the mythical name of the Pentium Pro and its family members
(P2, P3).  Code compiled for i686 works on any successor chips.

The original Pentium was going to be called the 586 (next in the
sequence 8086, 186, 286, 386, 486) but Intel discovered it could not
trademark a number (in some jurisdiction?).  So many folks call the
next generation the 686.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I686

The 32-bit instruction set was introduced with the 386.  New
instructions have been added in several steps.  The Linux distros have
more or less settled on the 686 instruction set as being sufficiently
powerful and yet sufficiently inclusive.  If you are willing to
recompile everything (Gentoo?), I would guess that even i386 could still be
supported.




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