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From: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.followup
Subject: Re: Time for a change (Really why Intel stays in business)
Message-ID: <137@ima.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jun-86 10:19:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: ima.137
Posted: Tue Jun 24 10:19:34 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Jun-86 07:46:03 EDT
References: <27600001@okstate.UUCP> <425@quad1.UUCP> <279@orsvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Organization: Javelin Software Corporation
Lines: 22
Xref: watmath net.micro:14910 net.followup:6706
Summary: count your blessings, the PC could have been Z80 based

In article <279@orsvax1.UUCP> drew@orsvax1.UUCP (Drew Lucy) writes:
>I was Product Manager at Intel at the time of the IBM PC's introduction. 
>Believe me, the i80286 was not even close to being available at that time, let
>alone back when the PC was being designed. I don't know why IBM selected the
>8086 family of CPUs but, I'd guess they did it for the same reasons that the 
>vast majority of companies chose Intel over Motorola.

My understanding is that the PC was originally designed around a Z80, since
they were very concerned about having a low-end machine that could compete
with the Apple II.  The 8088 went into the design quite late, and could only
be fit in because they could use pretty much the same design that they had
made for the Z80.  At the time, there were no other 16 bit chips with 8 bit
buses (the 68008 was quite late) so the 8088 had it.

(This does not mean that I enjoy programming 8088's -- the sooner the 386
gets out on the market, the better.  And the RT's ROMP processor is not a
bad chip, either.)
-- 
John R. Levine, Javelin Software Corp., Cambridge MA +1 617 494 1400
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.EDU
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of a 12-year-old hacker
who has broken into my account and not those of any person or organization.