What is the meaning of 386, 286, 285, x86, x64?

[general.rule]

I was searching for linux torrents and with many of them I found the terms 386, 286, 285, x86, x64 and many more. Could someone inform me what is the meaning of these terms? Can they all run on my PC which is Pentium 4 1 GB Ram? And besides these terms are there any other terms too? Please inform. Thanks:)

[Dimitriid]

Well the first Intel sold I believe its 4004 a 4-bit processor. Then they made the 4040, the 8080, 8085 , 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486... A naming scheme.

[LaRoza]

I was searching for linux torrents and with many of them I found the terms 386, 286, 285, x86, x64 and many more. Could someone inform me what is the meaning of these terms? Can they all run on my PC which is Pentium 4 1 GB Ram? And besides these terms are there any other terms too? Please inform. Thanks:)

If you have a modern PC, 386, and up will work. x86 is 32 bit, and x64 is 64 bit.

Normally, anything ending in "86" will work on all Intel and AMD desktop processors, and x64, x86_64 and AMD64 will all work on modern 64 bit processors (even the AMD64 on Intel).

What processor do you have?

[Lord_Dicranius]

These numbers are referring to the processor.

- x86 (AKA IA-32, although you won't hear it referred to that) runs 32-bit apps
- x64 (AKA AMD64 and x86_64) has the ability to run both 32-bit and 64-bit apps
- IA-64 (AKA Itanium) is an Intel architecture that only runs 64-bit apps

The 286/386/486/586/686 (sometimes with an "i" before them) is also another name for an x86 processor (only runs 32-bit apps).

You can find Wikipedia pages on all of these too if you want to read further into them :)

[samjh]

286 = Intel 80286 processor family
386 = Intel 80386 processor family
486 = Intel 80486 processor family
x86 = Any Intel processor family ending in "86", eg. 286, 386, etc.

x64 = crap name. Should be x86_64 or amd64, used for 64-bit versions of the x86 processor architecture.