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kruadortoday at 9:56 AM1 replyview on HN

The 8086 was a stop-gap solution until iAPX432 was ready.

The 80286 was a stop-gap solution until iAPX432 was ready.

The 80386 started as a stop-gap solution until iAPX432 was ready, until someone higher up finally decided to kill that one.


Replies

pjc50today at 10:19 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432

I'd never heard of it myself, and reading that Wikipedia page it seems to have been a collection of every possible technology that didn't pan out in IC-language-OS codesign.

Meanwhile, in Britain a few years later in 1985, a small company and a dedicated engineer, Sophie Wilson, decided that what they needed was a RISC processor that was as plain and straightforward as possible ...