History of Computing

At the verge of the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows it is interesting to observe how people interpret and misuse acronyms for the definition of “their” platform. Looking at the acronyms in use out there one might consider oneself back in the eighties, with dozens of different incompatible computer systems. Unfortunately it is more boring than that. Let’s have a look.

Back in the old days, when 64-bit computing was still a novel concept and RISC vs. CISC wars were still fought, HP and Intel joined forces to develop the next-generation CPU. It would be 64-bit only and it would have a new type of architecture called EPIC. That was in 1994.