>If Intel's 8088 was stripped of half it's bus width, why was it used so
>much more than the 8086? One of the few computers that I've seen with an
Price, or something. The 8086 was the same thing as an 8088, but with a
full 16-bit bus, which was important for almost everything in those days
(IE before you had an on-chip cache for frequently used operations, an on
chip FPU for 3D/math, and all kinds of stuff like that.)
>8086 is the WANG WLTC (in the SCSI drive string). With being only 4 MHz
(I >think), it way out-performs my 8088 8MHz Zenith (I just wish it wasn't
so >dang big). I remember someone on here saying that an 8086 and 8088 were
>interchangeable. Is this true, and would there be an advantage?
I don't know if they're interchangable, but I'd think that you could swap a
8088 into an 8086 motherboard. Remember, it's the same processor up to the
bus, where the 8088's got a bone-headed 8-bit bus and the 8086's got a
16-bit one. The IBM PC, IIRC, used the 8088 because it WAS a 16-bit
processor (looked good on ads), and thus could take advantage of 16-bit
power, but with an 8-bit bus, which saved on cost. This is also why it
performed so poorly. Most of the IBM PC's (until more recently than you'd
think) cut corners in one way or another. The important thing about the 16
bit bus is the memory access, and you're practically halfing that. I think
they made an 8MHz 8086. The IBM used a 4.77MHz 8088. My XT (and I'm the
first person to open the case since the XT was orionally sold in 1985) has
an AMD 8088, as this is when Intel and AMD shared designs and fabs, to some
extent. (Anyone got history on how they split? What was it over? All I
know is that by the time of the 386, they had gone their seperate ways).
Tim
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Received on Sun Dec 27 1998 - 11:23:11 GMT