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Thank you for the reply. This will take a couple of, I think. Para 1. You are right of course about the 8088 (blame it on a type or a TIA)but according to John Bayko (Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present) www.infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/archive/cpu_history.html "IBM already had had rights to manufacture the 8086, in exchange for giving Intel the rights to its bubble memory designs." IMO, one of the least fruitful exchanges in history (from Intel's POV), unless IBM's own selection of the 8088 was internally conditioned on the possession of manufacturing rights, as it may well have been, in which case it was one of the most brilliant (again, from Intel's POV). One can hardly imagine what Intel would be today had IBM selected the 6800 or Z-80 instead of the 8088, or what Microsoft would be today had IBM selected CP/M instead of Bill Gates' vaporware operating system. (The best $50,000 Microsoft ever earned?). According to Moore, IBM started to make a loan, decided they weren't a bank and invested in stock instead. About the same time they invested in Microsoft. I think they should have bought and held. The stake in INTC would be worth almost as much as IBM is today. The Microsoft would be pure gravy. |
