The computer industry started with ascii codes where 8 bits binary codes of 256 items were defined by teletype machine years ago to transmit data with a printer.

In the ascii codes, there were alphanumerical words and numbers. It also has instructions to teletype machine and graphical symbols. But many items in the ascii codes were not defined. So, when x86 cpus came along, these undefined ascii codes can be defined for each platform, currently active i386 to i786 plus PPC, or MIPS, etc.

So, if you adopt a version of ascii codes, you can have access to all the instructions to any platform of cpus.