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To: Elmer who wrote (71034)	2/8/2002 1:19:57 AM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 275872

Elmer, Of course 286 was before 386, but I seem to recall that Intel released the 386, and IBM didn't automatically take it and ran with it. It was sitting around until Compaq introduced it. That lead to Compaq becoming the leading PC company at the time. Joe

To: Elmer who wrote (71034)	2/8/2002 1:25:18 AM
From: dale_laroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

>The 286 was out years before the 386 and IBM went so far as to license the i386 from Intel once it came out.< Congratulations on catching this. Back about a decade ago, I had the opportunity to man a booth near an IBM booth. At that time I presented my theory that IBM saw the Motorola 68000 as a threat to their minicomputer business, and therefore decided to attempt to derail the 68000 by choosing an alternative 16-bit processor, thus diverting the entire industry away from Motorola's architecture through tempting them into cloning IBM's alternative, just as manufacturers were cloning IBM's System 370 (and 3090) series mainframes. The 8088 did not win on its own merits however. It wasn't until Intel threw in the kicker of the marvelously brain damaged 80286 that IBM decided this was the architecture to embrace. Thus was born the IBM PC and later the IBM PC AT. Unfortunately, the i386 was not nearly as brain damaged as the 286. Indeed, it was a quite powerful processor that IBM viewed as a real threat to their minicomputer business. Thus, not only did IBM refuse to embrace the 386, they sold all their stock in Intel and badgered Microsoft into writing and marketing the 286 version of OS/2 before the 386 version. This is what I mean by going with the 286 instead of the 386. Anyway, this IBM employee who was manning the IBM booth responded by say it was a good theory, but nobody at IBM was smart enough to come up with this strategy.

To: Elmer who wrote (71034)	2/8/2002 7:21:00 AM
From: TGPTNDR	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Elmer, Re: < Who started this crazy notion that IBM chose the 286 over the 386? The 286 was out years before the 386 and IBM went so far as to license the i386 from Intel once it came out.> Yes. This is how I remember the sequence. Both IBM and Compaq had 286 machines. IBM was considered to be the 'real thing'. Compaq was a clone. Not as good. * Intel came out with the 386. * Compaq designed a BIOS to use the 386 and started selling machines. They were faster than anything IBM had. Surprised the heck out of the press. * IBM came out with their PS2 line. The company I work for bought the IBMs for about 2 years. (Microchannel. Real IBM. Future Compatibility. THE RIGHT STUFF ) *It became clear the Compaqs were faster and 'More Compatible' than the IBMs. At that point we quit buying IBMs. So did a lot of other companies. By then, IBMs reputation as the PC company was gone for ever. tgptndr