KnifeMissile

I'm sorry, but my understanding is totally different from this. I couldn't finish reading your post because I was stuck on this issue so I would like this cleared up, please.

"Each bit is capable of processing one binary instruction per clock cycle?" This makes no sense to me. Consequently, "...meaning they can process 32 binary instructions per clock cycle" makes no sense to me, either.

A bit is a contraction of the term binary digit. So, a number represented with 64 binary digits is referred to as a 64 bit number.

Back in the day, PCs used to use 16 bit processors, the 386 being the last of them. What this meant is that the registers on the processor were 16 bits wide. Because you manipulated registers with the processor, this meant that the largest numbers you can manipulate with a 16 bit processor were 16 bit numbers, which have a maximum value of 2^16 -1 = 165535. As you can see, this is not a large number and so, in some respects, limited what the processor can do. Of course programs for the 386 could manipulate numbers larger than this (it would have been alomost useless if it couldn't) but it couldn't do so with the native instruction set. It had to simulate operations of larger numbers using an equivalent combination of 16 bit operations, which was much slower. For performance reasons, this also meant that pointers were restricted to 16 bit integers, which restricted the amount of accessible RAM to a measly 64KB without resorting to hardware hackery (which, incidentally, they did! This is a whole other story on its own and quite a funny one...).

The 486 marked the first 32 bit processor the the PC. It could perform 32 bit operations, with a maximum integer size of 2^32 - 1 = 4294967296, a little over a billion. Not only was this a much more useful integer limit but it also allowed the processor to address 4GB of RAM. Quite a lot of RAM to be sure but, as you can see, this is not an impossible amount of RAM for a home computer to have. In fact, it will probably be only a few years before people will consider this to be typical. We're also, now, considering switching to 64 bit processors. Coincidence? I'll let you decide.

So, now we're pushing for 64 bit processors. Incidentally, there were plenty of processors with wider registers than Intel's. The N64 was called that because it had a 64 bit processor (Motorola MIPS 4300, if memeory serves me). Many Sun prcessors in the mid 90's had 128 bit processors. So, this is hardly incredible technology. It is simply a choice and we're making this choice now because we want more RAM.

I look forward to reading the rest of your article, bendsley, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could clear this up.
Thanks!