more talking to the press.

Ben, in fact to me it's the way the memory is handled that makes the 8086 the great CPU it is - and of course the co processor concept (and some insructions), which is more like a mainframe than the usual microprocessor. While the 8080 is realy not the worlds greatest design, the similarities between 8080 and 8086 are rether marginal. To me, as long time /370 programmer, the segment registers always apeared as base registers ... The 8086 is a pure 16 Bit Design, no halfways includes 32 or whatever length operations. Shure, the design is build around special purpose registers, but the result is an incredible simple hardware design with an exceptional low gate count (from todays view) way lower than most other rivaling CPUs (68K, 16K). And at least the 4 main registers are general purpose (ok, AX is still priviledged in speed/code size). If I had to choose a CPU to be used in an embedded project, a x86 or a 6502 would be first choice. They take up amlost no space, are easy to programm and quite powerfull. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 5.0 am 01./02. Mai 2004 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/