On a technical support forum or list I don’t assume the poster means anything other than what is said. No distro was mentioned, so I could only respond as if i386 means a system containing an Intel 80386 microprocessor. Whatever the processor actually in use, those unwilling to wait for a stable release when additional downloads are historically made available, may avail themselves of the beta .tar or other source openly provided.
Additional background, quoting from Debian’s notes regarding their current stable release in the flavor they call i386: (emphasis added)
2.1.2.1. CPU
Nearly all x86-based (IA-32) processors still in use in personal computers are supported. This also includes 32-bit AMD and VIA (former Cyrix) processors, and processors like the Athlon XP and Intel P4 Xeon.
However, Debian GNU/Linux buster will not run on 586 (Pentium) or earlier processors.
In case you missed it, Debian i386 hasn’t meant Intel i386, i486, or even Pentium (586) since 2016. The last release to support an Intel i486-series CPU is lenny from 2009. I can’t find any official notice of when i386 didn’t include Intel 80386; perhaps it died quietly somewhere in the 2.x releases. Intel stopped making them in 2007 and Linus Torvalds stopped supporting it in the kernel with 3.8.(Feb 2013.)