diff --git a/startup/EpicsHostArch b/startup/EpicsHostArch
index 94e2a310f..afbece4b8 100755
--- a/startup/EpicsHostArch
+++ b/startup/EpicsHostArch
@@ -3,6 +3,13 @@
 # base/bin/tools/EpicsHostArch - returns the Epics host architecture suitable
 #                           for assigning to the EPICS_HOST_ARCH variable
 
+if [ "x${1}" != "x" ]
+then
+    suffix="-"${1}
+else
+    suffix=""
+fi
+
 sysname=`uname`
 
 case $sysname in
@@ -13,7 +20,7 @@ case $sysname in
             cpu=x86
 			;;
 		esac
-		echo ${os}-${cpu}
+		echo ${os}-${cpu}${suffix}
         ;;
     HP-UX )
         os=hpux
@@ -22,12 +29,12 @@ case $sysname in
             cpu=m68k
 			;;
 		esac
-		echo ${os}-${cpu}
+		echo ${os}-${cpu}${suffix}
         ;;
     OSF1 )
         os=osf
 		cpu=`uname -m`
-		echo ${os}-${cpu}
+		echo ${os}-${cpu}${suffix}
         ;;
     SunOS )
         version=`uname -r | sed '1s/^\([0-9]*\).*$/\1/'`
@@ -45,7 +52,7 @@ case $sysname in
             cpu=x86
 			;;
 		esac
-		echo ${os}-${cpu}
+		echo ${os}-${cpu}${suffix}
         ;;
     * )
         echo unsupported
diff --git a/startup/EpicsHostArch.pl b/startup/EpicsHostArch.pl
index 2779a2a53..575aac135 100755
--- a/startup/EpicsHostArch.pl
+++ b/startup/EpicsHostArch.pl
@@ -7,8 +7,11 @@ eval 'exec perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'  # -*- Mode: perl -*-
 
 use Config;
 
+$suffix="";
+$suffix="-".$ARGV[0] if ($ARGV[0] ne "");
+
 $EpicsHostArch = GetEpicsHostArch();
-print "$EpicsHostArch";
+print "$EpicsHostArch$suffix";
 
 sub GetEpicsHostArch { # no args
     $arch=$Config{'archname'};