XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at   
      
   Lawrence D'Oliveiro  writes:   
   >On Tue, 5 Aug 2025 21:01:20 -0000 (UTC), Thomas Koenig wrote:   
   >   
   >> So... a strategy could have been to establish the concept with   
   >> minicomputers, to make money (the VAX sold big) and then move   
   >> aggressively towards microprocessors, trying the disruptive move towards   
   >> workstations within the same company (which would be HARD).   
   >   
   >None of the companies which tried to move in that direction were   
   >successful. The mass micro market had much higher volumes and lower   
   >margins, and those accustomed to lower-volume, higher-margin operation   
   >simply couldn’t adapt.   
      
   At leas some of the Nova-based microprocessors were relatively cheap,   
   and still did not succeed.  I think that the essential parts of the   
   success of the 8088 were:   
      
   * Offered 1MB of address space.  In a cumbersome way, but still; and   
     AFAIK less cumbersome than what you would do on a mini or Apple III.   
     Intel's architects did not understand that themselves, as shown by   
     the 80286, which offered decent support for multiple processes, each   
     with 64KB address space.  Users actually preferred single-tasking of   
     programs that can access more than 64KB easily to multitasking of   
     64KB (or 64KB+64KB) processes.   
      
   * Cheap to design computers for, in particular the 8-bit bus and small   
     package.   
      
   * Support for porting 8080 assembly code to the 8086 architecture.   
     That was not needed for long, but it provided a boost in available   
     software at a critical time.   
      
   - anton   
   --   
   'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'   
     Mitch Alsup,    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)