Each hardware platform, or CPU family, has a unique machine language. All software presented to the computer for execution must be in the binary coded machine language of that CPU. Following is a list of the major hardware platforms that have been manufactured over the years. CISC and RISC are the two fundamental architectures of machine instructions (see
CISC and
RISC). See
platform.
PLATFORM MANUFACTURER (USAGE)
Current CISC
x86 Intel, AMD, etc. (PC, Mac)
IBM Z IBM mainframes
Current RISC
ARM ARM (phones, tablets, etc.)
MIPS Wave Computing
SPARC Oracle (originally Sun)
Previous CISC
Itanium Intel
68K Motorola (earlier Macs)
VAX Digital's mini series
S/360 IBM mainframe
S/370 IBM mainframe
S/390 IBM mainframe
AS/400 IBM midrange/System i
S/36 IBM old mini/System/36
Non-Stop Tandem (fault tolerant)
Unisys Unisys mainframes
PDP/11 Digital's 1st mini
Previous RISC
88000 Motorola (DG, Encore)
PA-RISC HP workstations, servers
Alpha HP servers
PowerPC Apple, IBM, Motorola
i860 Intel (Stratus)