On Mon, 15 Mar 2021 12:34:42 +0100 Sven Hartge <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote: > > >> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC > >> in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also > >> availble M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it > >> would not be in competition with the mainframes the PC was > >> supposed to interface with primarily. > > > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes. > > >> If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC > >> ecosystem today would also look quite differently. > > > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst > > possible choice at that time. > > Having had a 68k would have been awesome. No stupid memory > segmentation, 32bit instructions and internal address size, 24bit > external address size. > > Imagine a PC with 4GB adressable memory space in 1980. > > I can. It would have cost as much as a mainframe to make full use of it. -- Joe
