What role does the duopoly, Intel/Microsoft, play in the success of the earlier years of the 8086? When choice is restricted sometimes the best isn't the most successful!
Happy computing, Murray 🙂 On Sun, Jun 14, 2026 at 8:19 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, 14 Jun 2026, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > Have you tried to run an early 8086/8088 binary on any modern Intel > > processor? > > The sole advantage of Intel's approach, is by making each one a hodgepodge > of kludges from its predecessor, rather that a thorough redesign from > scratch, is that less work was required to modify programs for the next > one. > Obviously starting over with a complete redesign makes for a much better > final product, but longer delays to port software. > > 8086/8088 binary required VERY few changes to run up through Pentium. > > Micropro (later Wordstar International) ported Wordstar from 8080 to 8088 > in about two weeks! > It then took them much longer than that to revise the manuals. (Would > using a different word processor have sped that up? :-) > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred [email protected] >
