Posted by Paul DeMone, Tuesday June 17 2003 @ 04:58PM EDT
In 1981 IBM introduced a personal computer based on the Intel 8088 processor, a low cost, low performance variant of the 8086. The official reasons that the 8088 was chosen over its closest competitor, the Motorola MC68000, were its earlier availability and the fact that the 8088’s multiplexed address bus and 8 bit data bus reduced system costs. There were no integrated chipsets back then and board level buses required SSI TTL "jelly bean" components to buffer and latch data. These devices are 8 bit wide each so a 68000 system required more of them which raised board area, power consumption, and cost. Some observers also noted that a PC line built on the more capable 68000 could have effectively challenged IBM’s high margin low end proprietary minicomputers. IBM long understood that internal competition within its various overlapping product lines was often a bigger problem than its rival’s products. Minimization of internal competition, IBM’s "don’t eat your own children" principle, was likely the third, unspoken factor in its decision to adopt the 8088.
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