Re: [EVEN MORE OFFTOPIC] Re: [?] Why should Distros be called as i386 for a 32-bit PC, and as amd64 for a 64-bit PC, when Intel Core PCs are also 64bit systems

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC in
>> 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble M68k
>> CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be in
>> competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface with
>> primarily.
> Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes.

I'm sure there have been several different factors and it's hard to know
which were more important (often the more personal and less technical
factors are the more important ones in those areas, but the hardest to
track down and verify).  Another important factor (linked to pragmatic
constraints of overall production cost and availability of all the
various components at particular dates) made it important to use an 8bit
interface between the CPU and the system (which arguably also ensured it
was no threat performancewise to the rest of IBM's linup).
That's another reason why they went with the 8088 rather than the 8086,
and also another reason why they went with Intel rather than Motorola,
since the 68008 wasn't available yet.


        Stefan