28 Jan
2010
28 Jan
'10
6:11 p.m.
On 28 Jan 2010 at 11:00, Ben wrote:
But looking now at history, Intel did not have a
working 16/32 bit
design at that time. That x86 was just a hack that worked well with
the blessing of IBM. It seems only Motorola thought of 'home'
computing more with 6809. Everything larger seems to have been
designed to replace the mini-computer/main-frame market.
The 8086, as I recall, was intended to be a stopgap product until the
432 could be shipped in quantity. I do recall our Intel sales guy
pitching how great the 432 was going to be at the time. When we saw
the initial prices for the chipset (calling the 432 a "single chip
microcomputer" ISTR, was a misnomer), our jaws hit the floor.
Perhaps the 432 was "too much too soon". Nowadays, it'd probably be
possible to implement it in a large FPGA.
--Chuck