Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!microsoft!gordonl
From: gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon LETWIN)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IBM PC prehistory
Summary: IBM bought Intel later
Message-ID: <10131@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 90 18:18:40 GMT
References: <1546@aber-cs.UUCP> <33896@mips.mips.COM> <21559@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1989Dec30.235854.14254@world.std.com>
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 27

In article <1989Dec30.235854.14254@world.std.com>, bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
> 
> >> I think that IBM choose Intel for largely business reasons...
> >
> >At the time, IBM owned a large percentage of Intel stock (> 20%). Because
> >of this, It is unlikely they would have gone to another chip maker.
> 

This is wrong... IBM bought a piece of Intel long after they chose the
8088 for the IBM Pc.  I seem to recall that they've since sold their
stake, as well.

Although I'm not an authority on the subject, I'm pretty sure that the
reason IBM used the 8088 is because of Intels clever marketing policy.
They designed the 8086 first, and then produced an 8 bit version, the 8088.
The 8088 is actually slightly more complex than the 8086 because of the
add on circuitry to "narrow" the bus interface, but they sold it much
cheaper in the theory that once the low price gets people "tied in" to the
instruction set then they'll upgrade to the much higher profit margin 8086.

I think that IBM used the 8088 because it was very much cheaper than
the other 16 bit chips at the time (IBM originally was thinking of something
like an 8085 - an 8 bit machine) and it also reduced system cost with
it's 8 bit bus.

	gordon letwin
	microsoft