Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!gvgpsa!gold!grege From: grege@gold.GVG.TEK.COM (Greg Ebert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: 80x86 series chips. History of- Message-ID: <1339@gold.GVG.TEK.COM> Date: 23 Aug 90 22:23:20 GMT References: Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA Lines: 19 In article troch@pilot.njin.net (Rod Troch) writes: > >I was having a discussion with a colleague of mine and we are both >unsure of the history of the 80x86 chip series. > >The crux of the discussion is the 80186 chip. Does it exist? >Is it the same as the 8086 chip? Which came first, the 8088 or the >8086 (or should I say 80186)? > I remember hearing some whispers about the 8086 in late 1979. Back then, when hi-tech was a 16k DRAM, a lot of folks were nervous about having to use a 16-bit bus. So, the 8088 came along. I didn't hear about this one for sure until early 1982, when the PC came out. The 80186 DOES exist. It's called a high-integration device and contains 2 onchip DMA controllers, 3 timers, and RAM/ROM decode logic. It is code-compatible with the 8086. I know this beast existed in 1984 because I used to program it; I think it may have come out in 1983.