No one has quite emphasized the important part: The Intel 8088 was the cpu used in the original IBM-PC and IBM-PC/XT It's still available (I'm not sure if it's still being manufactured.) In fact, you can get full PC/XT-style motherboards for about $10 (last time I saw some advertised.) Such a motherboard is comparable in some sense to a PIC, as is a full PC system, which you can generally find at garage sales, in dumpsters, and at surplus stores, in amoungst the "too worthless to even test" piles... The NEC V-20 was an 8088 pin compatible with slightly better performance, as well as an 8080 (z80?) compatibility feature... BillW -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu