Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!aucis!easton
From: easton@aucis.UUCP (Jeff Easton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: MC6809 almost picked by IBM
Keywords: IBM PC, 6809 based PC
Message-ID: <392@aucis.UUCP>
Date: 29 Mar 89 01:12:25 GMT
Organization: Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI
Lines: 23

I've always wanted to ask this....

On the front page of Electronic News, Dec. 7, 1987 issue, in an article
titled "Peripheral PC Kits Succumbing to Tightly Packed Chip Sets", there
is this paragraph:

  Although the standard architecture of the PC has provided the only
  viable market for the consolidatied peripherals chip sets - a slight
  silver lining to Motorla, which lost out to Intel's 8088 in th
  original design-win because it could not deliver the 6809 MPU to IBM -
  etc, etc.                                            ^^^^

I have never heard of this before or after this specific article.  Is it
true?  If so, why would IBM have picked the 8 bit 6809 over the 16 bit
68000, which I belive was avaliable at roughly the same time?

If true, just think of the possibilities, today we could have 33 Mhz CPU's
(32 bit) that were object code compatible with the 6809.

Has anyone else heard this story?

	Jeff Easton
	Zenith Data Systems