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The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures (ISAs) for computer processors, originally developed by Intel. It is the dominant architecture for personal computers and servers, used by CPUs from manufacturers like Intel and AMD.

Architectural evolution

The name "x86" came about because early processors in this family had model numbers ending in "86," including the 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486.

16-bit: The lineage began in 1978 with the 16-bit Intel 8086 microprocessor. The original IBM PC famously used a variant called the 8088.

32-bit (IA-32): In 1985, the architecture was extended to 32 bits with the introduction of the Intel 80386. This phase was officially known as IA-32 (Intel Architecture, 32-bit). When you see a program folder labeled "Program Files (x86)" on a 64-bit Windows system, it designates the location for 32-bit applications. A key limitation of the 32-bit architecture is its memory addressing capacity, which is roughly 4 gigabytes (2^32 bytes).