In my circles, I think we just used the CPU name since there weren't that many of them yet, and unlike 386/486/586/etc, the 286 and lower CPUs weren't real 32-b

In my circles, I think we just used the CPU name since there weren't that many of them yet, and unlike 386/486/586/etc, the 286 and lower CPUs weren't real 32-bitters. So, "386", "286" etc. Or just "Intel" to refer to the whole CPU family. IIRC, I started hearing "x86" once the 486 came out in 1989.