4 ms·

> the 286 as what it was, a deeply flawed first attempt to solve the problems of the 8086/8088 The 186 never gets any love... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In

by cr0sh 8y ago

> the 286 as what it was, a deeply flawed first attempt to solve the problems of the 8086/8088 The 186 never gets any love... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80186 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80186 ...and yes, despite it's flaws, it did make it in a few PC machines...kinda.

smacktoward 8y ago
Indeed! I'd somehow completely forgotten about the old 186. And one of the very few clone makers who brought a 186 machine to market was... Tandy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000 (They really knew how to pick 'em, huh.)
- cr0sh 8y ago
  Heh - didn't know the 2000 was based on the 186, but that seems likely. Most of those machines were well out of the range of my parent's budget - though after they passed away, and I looked on their receipts for what they spent on my CoCo collection (all of which I still own) - well, I just shake my head. I guess it paid off - they did live long enough to see me become a software engineer (though as a kid I never gave that career choice an iota of thought). Anyhow - Radio Shack/Tandy always did have a thing about custom machine designs; they always wanted things to be in-house, and that too probably helped cause their eventual demise, because it took a long time for them to sell a "clone" (I can't recall which was their first true clone; I want to say it was the Tandy 4000 or 5000 - I think it had an "MPC" designation, and came with a CD-ROM drive, and was super expensive at the time). Of course, they eventually just started selling other brand's clones, and not even rebadging them, much like they did the RCA line of audio/video components (I have a Realistic 100 watt component stereo that I got in high school picked from separate components - still works well; got an amp/receiver, the 15-band EQ with the LED display in the middle, and a tape deck - coupled to a pair of 12 inch 3-way speakers they sold - still a nice system, though a bit rough on the edges today).
dfawcus 8y ago
Also in the RM Nimbus PC-186 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Nimbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Nimbus). I remember some of those being at university running a DOS NFS client and windows, alongside a bunch of Sun workstations. That would have been around '88 or '89. Part of the 'problem' with the 186 is that some of its on-chip peripherals (DMA and interrrupt controller?) were different to those used by IBM in its PC.
cptskippy 8y ago
That's because it's not really applicable. It was never intended as a replacement for the 8086/8088 but was designed to reduce component counts in integrated systems. The 186 was closer to a SoC and the integrated components weren't backward compatible with what was used in the IBM PC/AT so it was kind of a nonstarter in the PC arena.

by cr0sh 8y ago

smacktoward 8y ago

Indeed! I'd somehow completely forgotten about the old 186. And one of the very few clone makers who brought a 186 machine to market was... Tandy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_2000 (They really knew how to pick 'em, huh.)

cr0sh 8y ago
Heh - didn't know the 2000 was based on the 186, but that seems likely. Most of those machines were well out of the range of my parent's budget - though after they passed away, and I looked on their receipts for what they spent on my CoCo collection (all of which I still own) - well, I just shake my head. I guess it paid off - they did live long enough to see me become a software engineer (though as a kid I never gave that career choice an iota of thought). Anyhow - Radio Shack/Tandy always did have a thing about custom machine designs; they always wanted things to be in-house, and that too probably helped cause their eventual demise, because it took a long time for them to sell a "clone" (I can't recall which was their first true clone; I want to say it was the Tandy 4000 or 5000 - I think it had an "MPC" designation, and came with a CD-ROM drive, and was super expensive at the time). Of course, they eventually just started selling other brand's clones, and not even rebadging them, much like they did the RCA line of audio/video components (I have a Realistic 100 watt component stereo that I got in high school picked from separate components - still works well; got an amp/receiver, the 15-band EQ with the LED display in the middle, and a tape deck - coupled to a pair of 12 inch 3-way speakers they sold - still a nice system, though a bit rough on the edges today).

dfawcus 8y ago

Also in the RM Nimbus PC-186 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Nimbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Nimbus). I remember some of those being at university running a DOS NFS client and windows, alongside a bunch of Sun workstations. That would have been around '88 or '89. Part of the 'problem' with the 186 is that some of its on-chip peripherals (DMA and interrrupt controller?) were different to those used by IBM in its PC.

cptskippy 8y ago

That's because it's not really applicable. It was never intended as a replacement for the 8086/8088 but was designed to reduce component counts in integrated systems. The 186 was closer to a SoC and the integrated components weren't backward compatible with what was used in the IBM PC/AT so it was kind of a nonstarter in the PC arena.