> Note from the future: At the time of writing, the term “x86” was used exclusively to refer to what later became known as “x86-32”. The name “x86-64” wouldn’t be invented until 2006.
Notes from the future are always a risky business. Now we're in the future and we call them x86 and x64 - which makes far less sense than x86-32 and x86-64, but I guess is shorter and doesn't require you to learn a new name for an old concept.
I guess the actual future always turns out a bit more messy than the science fiction version of it.
> The name “x86-64” wouldn’t be invented until 2006.
While x86-32 is AFAIK a backronym which would only be invented later, the original name of the AMD64 architecture is x86-64, and has been since that architecture was first revealed at the turn of the millennium. If you weren't following these developments back then, you can still see it for yourself in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20000817014037/http://www.x86-64... is the earliest snapshot of the official page for the x86-64 Linux porting effort, which links to https://web.archive.org/web/20000817071303/http://www.amd.co... which is a snapshot of a press release dated 2000-08-15 announcing that porting effort. Quoting from that press release: "AMD publicly released its 64-bit architecture specification, the x86-64™ Architecture Programmers Overview, last week to enable the industry to begin incorporating x86-64 technology support into their operating systems, applications, drivers, and development tools."
That is, the x86-64 name was first used publicly, as the official name of that architecture, no later than early August of the year 2000.
Notes from the future are always a risky business. Now we're in the future and we call them x86 and x64 - which makes far less sense than x86-32 and x86-64, but I guess is shorter and doesn't require you to learn a new name for an old concept.
I guess the actual future always turns out a bit more messy than the science fiction version of it.