At Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:00:40 -0500 [email protected] (John Hasler) wrote: > > alain williams writes: > > A great example of that was the Motorola M68000 series of processors, it > > was a > > serious contender for "the" CPU to be used in the 1980s. Logically (ie from > > the > > programming PoV) it was 32 bit but physically (ie looking at how it > > connected > > to the mother board) it was 8, 16, 32 bit - depending on how much you > > wanted to > > The 8088 (used in the original pc) had an 8 bit external data bus while > the 8086 had a full 16 bit bus. The programming model was the same. > Later Intel processors also offered a choice of external bus sizes, such > as the 32 bit 386DX and the 16/24 bit 386SX (the 386DX could also use a 16 > bit bus). > > It has been argued that IBM chose Intel over Motorola because the 68000 > was so powerful that a pc based on it might have competed with some of > their entry level business systems.
Sun produced *UNIX Workstations* based in the 68000... OS-9/68K ran one 680xx machines... So yes, a 68K could be used to build a fairly powerful *32-bit* system. -- Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364 Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services [email protected] -- Webhosting Services
