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Intel 8088




The Intel 8088 is an Intel Microprocessor based on the 8086 , with 16- Bit registers and an 8-bit external Data Bus . The processor was used in the original IBM PC .

The 8088 was targeted at economical systems by allowing the use of 8-bit designs. Large bus width circuit boards were still fairly expensive when it was released. The prefetch queue of the 8088 is 4 bytes, as opposed to the 8086's 6 bytes. The descendants of the 8088 include the 80188 , 80288 , 80186 , 80286 , 80386 , 80486 , & 80388 Microcontroller s which are still in use today. See the list below for a more complete list.

The most influential microcomputer to use the 8088 was, by far, the IBM PC . The original PC processor ran at a Clock Frequency of 4.77 MHz. A popular Clone using an 8088 was the Leading Edge Model D , with a switch to select running at 4.77 MHz or 7.16 MHz.

Apparently IBM's own engineers wanted to use the Motorola 68000 , and it was used later in the forgotten IBM Instruments 9000 Laboratory Computer , but IBM already had rights to manufacture the 8086 family, in exchange for giving Intel the rights to its Bubble Memory designs. A factor for using the 8-bit Intel 8088 version was that it could use existing Intel 8085 -type components, and allowed the computer to be based on a modified 8085 design. 68000 components were not widely available at the time, though it could use Motorola 6800 components to an extent. Intel bubble memory was on the market for a while, but Intel left the market due to fierce competition from Japanese corporations who could undercut by cost, and left the memory market to focus on processors.

A compatible replacement chip, the V20 , was produced by NEC for an approximate 20 percent improvement in computing power.