[plt-scheme] still confused about 32/64 bit

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 10:15 AM, keydana at gmx.de <keydana at gmx.de> wrote:
> After reading some articles on Wikipedia, my main question is now:  Does
>  "architecture" refer to the hardware or to the software (the OS)?

Depends on context

> Because first I thought it referred to the hardware, like in "Intel x86
> architecture". In that case, as my processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo, I guess
> I should have an x86_64 architecture.

64-bit x86 chips can run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode. So you have both. :)

> On the other hand, when I type
> $ arch
>
> I get "i386" which stands for 32 bit intel.
> So "architecture" perhaps refers to how the OS uses the processor (I'm still
> running Leopard, where the kernel runs in 32bit  mode)?

Yes, Leopard is 32-bit only, so your CPU runs only in 32-bit mode and
your architecture is reported as that.

N.