Why is 86 32 bit

It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Is this Windows Vista 32 bit, or 64 bit?

In current terminology x86 normally indicates bits, with x or x64 indicating bits. Nowadays this normally is taken to simply mean a bit instruction set. Initally it was a set of instructions that operated with only bit, so historically could be referred to as x or x But, obviously, x is no longer relevant as bit processors died out a long time ago.

It is fully backwards compatible with the bit x86 instruction set allowing bit software to be compatabile without modification in most cases and is taken to simply mean a bit instruction set. Windows Vista reports x86 for 32bit version and x for 64bit version. It is sometimes also referred to as x They often referred by the term x Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? The family used in the original Macintosh is much older than the , for instance.

The PowerPC's claim to fame when new was strong emulation support for both x86 and 68K. The ARM is bit, more modern, and quite common as well. I don't see it as x64, at least I don't writ it that way. I write it as 32b and 64b, respectively. Show 5 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. In other words, it's more marketing than technology for the reason. Improve this answer. Bart Silverstrim Bart Silverstrim And because x86 originated with the I've never been able to work out why it's always associated with 32 bits.

As I recall, the was a 16 bit processor, which used double registers to enable 32 bit memory addressing. Intel was far from being a leader in the field in those days. BTW gWaldo, you left out the From Wikipedia, "Both the architecture and the physical chip were therefore developed rather quickly by a small group of people, and using the same basic microarchitecture elements and physical implementation techniques as employed for the slightly older and for which the also would function as a continuation.

Yea, I left out the because I honestly couldn't remember if it had been a released product and was feeling too lazy to look it up This answer has nothing wrong, but I honestly think Daniel's should be the accepted one, as it's much more detailed. Show 1 more comment. Later, because people are lazy, the x became known simply as the x So, in answer to your question, because x64 is shorter than x Daniel C. Sobral Daniel C. Sobral 5, 5 5 gold badges 31 31 silver badges 47 47 bronze badges.

Not to nit pick but to be compltely exact, AMD never marketed a 64 bit chip. Additionally, I believe Intel faced trademark issues because they were just using numbers and you can't trademark a sequence of numbers, that is why what would have been the became the Pentium, a made-up name that they could continue to trademark. The chip has bit instruction set and bit registers, that makes it bit chip.

I don't know where you get the impression that AMD never marketed a bit chip from. It's true though, that AMD never marketed a bit that breaks compatibility with bit chip, like Intel did with its IA And calls bit x86 i It's only or at least mostly in the Windows world that x86 specifically means bit x Most hardware people talking about CPUs understand x86 to mean any CPU that's backwards-compat with , regardless of what mode its operating in normally bit long mode, or sometimes bit compat mode under a bit kernel.

Add a comment. Joel Coel Joel Coel Overmind: x64 and IA were always separate things. IA is completely unrelated to x86 or x The 64 bit computers can run both 32bit programs and 64 bit programs. Latest Laptops with pre-installed Windows are usually x64 i. There is ne another way you can understand that if your PC is running bit Windows, you'll probably find a Program Files x86 folder on your hard drive.

This stores bit applications, while the other 'Program Files' folder contains all the bit apps you've installed.