> Sir,
or Madam,
> Are 386 or older class processors still manufactured by any company?
Yes. 386 chips are used in a wide variety of embedded applications
and are not going away anytime soon. Intel has licensed the
manufacture of 386 chips out to other companies.
> Do Processor / Computer manufacturing companies in the World
> stick to the models they make and provide support to them after
> say 3 years?
Heck, some of them don't provide support after 3 days!
It really varies a lot. Some companies will support chips 6 or 8
years afterwards, some provide support only as long as they are
manufacturing a particular chip. I've put a microprocessor in an
embedded system that the manufacturer quit making without notice
while I was still working on the prototype, and lost several weeks
redesigning the board and reprogramming another chip to take its
place. In this particular case, the manufacturer did not stockpile
any of its chips for future orders, so other support--manuals, bug
reporting and resolution, etc.--don't matter much.
And the level of support varies greatly, too. If you plan on relying
on a company for support, it's best to determine the reputation of
the manufacturer before selecting one of their chips.
> Thank you,
> Sajeev.
You're welcome,
Emily.
