Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!manatee.cis.ufl.edu!seeger
From: seeger@manatee.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: IBM PC prehistory (was Japanese Josephson breakthrough?)
Message-ID: <21559@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 21 Dec 89 22:11:08 GMT
References: <1546@aber-cs.UUCP> <33896@mips.mips.COM>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: seeger@manatee.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III)
Organization: UF CIS Dept
Lines: 24

In article <33896@mips.mips.COM> keith@mips.COM (Keith Garrett) writes:
|In article <1546@aber-cs.UUCP> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
|>In case you have not understood, I liked the Z8000 a lot. If only IBM had
|>chosen it instead of the 8088/8086... If only Zilog had managed to do an MMU
|>and restartable instructions soon enough...
|the MMU was fairly early, and the virtual memory changes turned out to be
|relatively easy. the development tools were very late. i think the lack of
|tools, and a weak marketing effort are what did in the z8000.

I think that IBM choose Intel for largely business reasons, like availability
of second sources for parts and the fact that Zilog was owned by another major
coporation that was a potential competitor.  They could pretty much count on
dominating a small company like Intel.  Could be wrong, though.  The IBM PC
has been *much* more successful than the original IBM designers ever thought
that it would be.  It was designed very quickly, so the choice may have been
one of preference of one of the designers.  Does anyone with inside IBM
information care to enlighten us?  Also, is that story about Gary Kildal
blowing off a meeting with the IBMers to go flying true?

Chuck
--
  Charles Seeger    E301 CSE Building        +1 904 335 8053
  CIS Department    University of Florida
  seeger@ufl.edu    Gainesville, FL 32611