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From: wbeebe@bilver.uucp (Bill Beebe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: When will the 8088 die?
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.001051.19525@bilver.uucp>
Date: 7 Dec 90 00:10:51 GMT
References: <2842@polari.UUCP> <1990Dec5.184958.26371@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <853@pdxgate.UUCP>
Reply-To: wbeebe@bilver.UUCP (Bill Beebe)
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
Lines: 34

In article <853@pdxgate.UUCP> berggren@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Eric Berggren) writes:
>cy5@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Conway Yee) writes:

>  Exactly what uses for an 8088 did you have in mind that are impractical 
>due to the price? I can buy 8-Mhz 8088's for $8 each. Even a Nintendo uses
>more sophisticated technology.
>  Besides, by the time a 386 system comes down to the current price of an
>8088 systen ( around $450), I doubt ANYBODY would have a use for it. Our
>refridgerator uses a 186 for control (one of those fancy kind). The reason
>that's so cheap, is because the chip was so flawed for any PC system.
>

I beg to differ on both points. First, the Nintendo uses a straight
8-bit CPU. The graphics chip in particular is a derivative of the
TI 9918, an 8-bit chip that first appeared in the TI 99/4A.

As for the 186, it was never intended to be a PC replacement. It was
designed and has always been used as an embedded system. If there's
a flawed anything, it's the PC system itself. The I/O on the 186 is
simple and powerful, something the PC ain't.

A pure 8088 will pass away in due time, but just like the Z80, it will
continue on in value-added chips that combine many other features such
as serial channels, DMA, timers, and bit-addressable I/O, just to name
a few. The current incarnation of the 186 is the C186EB, a fully static
chip that can have it's clock stopped and thus is power consumption drops
to microamps. Even when running it's extremely power stingy. For systems
that don't require a fully static memory system, DRAMs can be easily
added to the C186EB, because it has on-chip DRAM support.

NEC as a broad array of 8086 derivative chips, as does Siemans.

And if you're paying $8 for 8088's all day long, then you're paying way
to much. I can get 16 MHz 80286's in quantity for $5.