Why 32 bit also called x86?

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We know that, for 64 bits we often called x64 but I don't know that why people often say x86 for 32 bits?

Posted 5-Oct-13 9:33am

vishal2592

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4 solutions

Solution 4

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86[^] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64[^] (especially Industry Naming Conventions[^]).
x86 is commonly associated with 32 bit architecture, which is in a pure technical sense not conclusive. Citation from the first link above:

The term x86 derived from the fact that early successors to the 8086 also had names ending in "86".

and

In the 1980s and early 1990s when the 8088 and 80286 was still in common use the term x86 usually represented any 8086 compatible CPU. Today, however, x86 usually implies a binary compatibility also with the 32-bit instruction set of the 80386. This is due to the fact that this instruction set has become something of a lowest common denominator for many modern operating systems and probably also because the term became common after the introduction of the 80386 in 1985.

Cheers
Andi

Posted 5-Oct-13 13:57pm

Andreas Gieriet

Updated 5-Oct-13 14:08pm

v3

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-Oct-13 4:26am

Correct, a 5, but see also Solution 3 and my comment to it.
I added my own answer to clarify it a bit.
—SA

Andreas Gieriet 6-Oct-13 6:18am

Hello Sergey,
thanks for your 5!
Cheers
Andi

Solution 5

Intel processors were aimed to support 86-bit address word from the very beginning, but, due to technical limitation, they started with 8… Just kidding. :-)

Please see my comment for Solution 3 and note the important fact: x86-64 is not the only 64-bit architecture use by Intel CPUs. These two 64-bit architectures are incompatible, require different compilation (of JIT-compilation):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium[^],
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64[^].

—SA

Posted 5-Oct-13 22:32pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

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Andreas Gieriet 6-Oct-13 6:17am

My 5!
Cheers
Andi

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-Oct-13 9:25am

Thank you, Andi.
—SA

Solution 1

Because they can use the x86 instruction set based on the Intel 8086 CPU.

Posted 5-Oct-13 9:37am

Ian A Davidson

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Zoltán Zörgő 5-Oct-13 15:42pm

That's quite true, even if 8086 processors had not 32, just 16 bit wide data bus (and registers), thus using large memory was not really possible. Still, x86 is an "acronym" for legacy systems, with low memory bottleneck.

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Ron Beyer · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-05T13:14:00

Solution 3

Just adding to what Ian said...

x86 is a correct acronym for a family of processors, I.E. 8086, 80386, 80486, 80586. The x is the prefix (80, 803...), so saying x86 refers to any processor family based on the x86 instruction sets. There are extensions to these sets like MMX and other Intel/AMD specific extensions but they are largely inter-operable. People usually think of x86 as 32-bit, but that's wrong too, the 8086 and 80286 were 16 bit.

x64 ~~is a misnomer, the real acronym is~~ short version of x86-64, which means an x86 instruction set that's been expanded to include 64 bit register space. People just shorten it to x64 to save a couple key strokes, but its based on the same processor architecture as the x86 processors, again with instruction set extensions and manufacturer specific features.

Posted 5-Oct-13 13:14pm

Ron Beyer

Updated 5-Oct-13 13:19pm

v3

Comments

RedDk 5-Oct-13 19:16pm

"x64 is a misnomer"? I absolutely disagree.

Ron Beyer 5-Oct-13 19:19pm

x86-64 Misnomer may be the wrong word, its not technically incorrect but a shorter version of x86-64.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-Oct-13 4:25am

Of course you are right, this is the misnomer, but this is used in Microsoft jargon (which has a lot more misleading terms).

First of all, it is related to x86-64 (also called AMD-64, as the architecture was actually developed in AMD based on Intel x86, not Intel), but the name pretends it is called after 64 bit architecture. But, say Intel Itanium (a.k.a. IE64) is also based 64-bit, but is incompatible with x86-64.
—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 6-Oct-13 4:33am

I 5ed the answer, by the way, but I added my own answer to clarify it a bit...
—SA

Ron Beyer 6-Oct-13 10:38am

Thanks Sergey.