Windows

When speaking of the "bit-width" of an application, the software is written to require a minimum processor instruction width of 32 or 64 bits.

In order to run 64 bit applications you need both a 64 bit design processor and a 64 bit operating system.

The original IBM PC was an 8 bit system.

The 286 was the first 16 bit system.

From the 386 on, we have had 32 bit systems.

The latest offerings from AMD include some 64 bit processors.

Chas

well its not 32 bit or 64 bit in the context of bits and bytes. What has happened over the years is that the term "word" has been dropped from the 32 bit. the actual term is 32 bit word processing or 64 bit word processing. A "word" is a step up from a byte and a byte is a series of 8 consecutive bits a computer processes. the bit to byte translation a cpu needs to do would slow down computers so designers came up with a "word" size. the # of bytes a computer processes per cycle.
goes with the ordinal field bit position tracking which a computer does very very well via their clocks. A processor doesnt keep track of each bit in an ordinal field rather keeps track of bit position of where a field begins and ends. most handy for processing information in a never ending stread of bits. A field is a piece of information and is what programmers program to. a field which can comprise of a 3 byte field or 2 byte field of logical information.

so 32 bit is 32 bit word processing, the # of bit words a processor can handle per cycle. Marketers prolly dropped it from the title simply cuz the average person isn't a programmer and wouldn't know the distinction between bit and bit word. Prolly the average Joe or Jame would think 32 bit word processing means, word processing. Something like Microsoft Word or WordPerfect so Sales and Marketing people dropped the word part of 32 bit processing to eliviate confusion.