<If Intel's 8088 was stripped of half it's bus width, why was it used so muc <more than the 8086? One of the few computers that I've seen with an 8086 i it was half the bits on the bus but the actual data rates were very close to each other. The 8088 would go out and do two hits for every one 8086 on the bus but both executed the same instruction in the same number of internal cycles. So for half the bus width you needed less support parts and lower cost for only 20% performance hit. The PC was slow not becuase of the 8088 though... it was the 4.77MHz clock when 8MHz parts were available. that choice was also related to the cost (slow parts are cheaper than fast parts). The 8086 and 8088 are the same CPU save for different bus width. They are not socket interchangeable. Allison