On Sat, 21 Apr 2001, Chris Pringle wrote:

> Wow, I never knew any of that.
> So, can you still buy 8088s? And, if so, what can they do. Do you need
> EPROMS for memory? Can they be used in the same way as a PIC can?

Yes, 8088's are still available.

They can do anything an 8086 can do...  which is to say, most of what a
Pentium-III can do, but without the memory management (and way slower).
1MB physical address limit, segmented into 64K banks.  The chip is a CPU,
not an MPU, and has no internal ROM, EPROM, RAM, peripheral functions, or
anything other than the processor itself.  So no, you ca't use it as a
single-chip embedded processor, but I've seen designs with as few as 3
40-pin packages.  It's more suited to larger and more complex embedded
tasks or general-purpose computers -- the IBM PC & XT used the 8088, as
did many other systems.

Dale
---
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
                -- Isaac Asimov

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