8086 eventually won, but 8088 dominated in the early 80’s
In the crazy days of the late 70’s and early 80’s, computers were much more expensive than they are today. While IBM was a mainframe company with some interesting plans, Apple was making inroads, as was Commodore. They wanted to create an affordable workstation, and realized that creating an 8-bit version of him on the 8086 processor would save them a ton of money. The 8088 was 16-bit internally and externally compatible with 8-bit parts. These parts are much more affordable and reliable than 16-bit parts, help keep costs down, add flexibility by adding additional general purpose registers, and the 8087 math coprocessor is expensive. was a compatible upgrade option.
It was a very brief description of the market at the time, but soon after that everything changed for IBM and the market.
Ars Technica recently spotted a new throwback product on AliExpress, the Book 8088. This is a totally bizarre $200 import system with a 1984 processor, custom motherboard design, and cobbled together parts to approximate. Here are the original IBM PC 5150 specs from 1981. If you’re nostalgic or want to relive the days of IBM-compatible PCs, check out that link to see some weird and interesting machines.
If you want to torture yourself, the Book 8088 seems to cost just over $200.
