17 Nov
2024
17 Nov
'24
1:49 a.m.
Why did those processors not catch on?
It seems to me that hardware people had a “if we build it, they will come” mentality and
hoped other companies would adopt it and actually write software to make it useful.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 16, 2024, at 17:38, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 11/16/24 16:24, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
So, Intel went with the "quick fix"
rather than the long-term good.
Okay, I vass dere and know what we were being told by Intel marketing in
the late 70s. The 8086 was not intended to be the eventual migration
target for larger-scale applications. Similar claims can be made for
the 80186--it was mostly intended for embedded applications.
The thing that was supposed to be the architecture to hang one's hat on
was the iAPX432. Intel's "Clean Slate" which was a horrible flop.
Another "clean slate" was the i860; my i860 reference manual has a
statement by BillG saying that MS intended to develop for that platform.
It seems that every time that Intel tries to do development from a
tabula rasa, they get burned. Witness Itanium/IA64.
The thing that saved Intel's bacon on several occasions was their
liberal licensing. Would we even have had the IBM 5150 if there weren't
a pile of second sources for the 8088? My early 5150 had an AMD CPU in it.
--Chuck