> AMD gets credit for 64-bit largely because Intel refused to do so
Yeah, no. Amd64 was made at a time where AMD was on top of its game, they released to the general public first while intel64 still wasn't ready, and microsoft annonced both that 1. windows was going to support amd64, and 2. windows was not going to support two different instruction sets for x86_64, effectively forcing Intel to implement the amd set which they still need to licence to this day.
Calling it "Intel let AMD get the credit because they couldn't be bothered" is either a lack of information over what happened or a nice rewrite of history, back then Intel was already feeling the effect of monopoly without competition which made them late on everything and pushing their pentium4 against the upcoming athlon 64 monster.
I think there is a reasonable argument that Intel "refused" to create a cheap 64bit competitor to IA-64, which they tried to push "serious" users (server business) to. When the shoe dropped that only pushing Itanium wasn't going to work, AMD already was ahead on the 64bit extension to x86.
No there isn't and this is history rewriting, even if you genuinely believe this could be this is not what happened at all.
First it's pretty clear, seeing how Intel played their game with the x86 licence, they would never have voluntarily made themselves depend on AMD licensing them x86_64 for the next decades like they are now.
Second, back then Intel was very seriously asking / pressuring microsoft into not supporting amd64 extension and wait for intel64 to be released instead. But intel64 was late and delayed, pentium 4 kept hitting brick walls while Athlon started reigning supreme, opteron was starting to be noticed on the server side, and IA-64 was not getting outside of niche territory. Meanwhile linux started making some real pressure on the server andbusiness demands meant microsoft needed to show a windows that supported 64 bits on commodity hardware, asap. Amd64 was ready and the chip using it were cheap and powerfull, so microsoft made their choice.
I'm still not sure what part exactly you see as inaccurate. The notion that Intel didn't work on x86_64 early enough? The assumption that if Intel had an x86_64 product first it would have had a chance against AMDs?
Not trying to rewrite history at all. It was reported that Intel had developed their own version of x86-64, but was withholding it because of Itanium. If Intel had pushed it to market first, both Microsoft and AMD would have followed along. Intel abandoned leadership and AMD was able to set the standard.
Yeah, no. Amd64 was made at a time where AMD was on top of its game, they released to the general public first while intel64 still wasn't ready, and microsoft annonced both that 1. windows was going to support amd64, and 2. windows was not going to support two different instruction sets for x86_64, effectively forcing Intel to implement the amd set which they still need to licence to this day.
Calling it "Intel let AMD get the credit because they couldn't be bothered" is either a lack of information over what happened or a nice rewrite of history, back then Intel was already feeling the effect of monopoly without competition which made them late on everything and pushing their pentium4 against the upcoming athlon 64 monster.