I just acquired a new Pentium 4 machine without any operating system and
installed SuSE Linux 9.3 Pro via booting from DVD. To my considerable
surprise I saw that the Apache2 webserver it decided to install was the
64bit version. The box is running x86_64 Linux.

I bought the box to become a Firebird/KinterbasDB enabled Apache web server.

Research indicates that Intel have supplied me with what appears to be a
machine with 64bit functionality. This from their website ...

Intel EM64T provides support for:

64-bit flat virtual address space
64-bit pointers
64-bit wide general purpose registers
64-bit integer support
Up to 1 terabyte (TB) of platform address space

and ...

Intel EM64T represents a natural addition to Intel's computing
architecture, allowing platforms to access larger amounts of memory.
Processors with Intel EM64T support 64-bit capable operating systems
from Microsoft, Red Hat and SuSE. Processors running in legacy mode
remain fully compatible with today's existing 32-bit applications and
operating systems.

Does this have any implications for Firebird? Should I have even noticed?

Thanks

Mike