> The changes from the i80286 to the i80386 were extreme It was the 386 that really put the platform's strategy squarely in the realm of general purpose comput

> The changes from the i80286 to the i80386 were extreme It was the 386 that really put the platform's strategy squarely in the realm of general purpose computing. The 8088 and 8086 were intended as short term backfills for the gap left by the dismal performance and high cost of i432. The 8018x chips were targeted at the embedded space and the 80286 was targeted at phone switches. It was really something of an accident that the 286 worked in the PC AT class machines as well as it did. The 80386 was Intel's realization that they were successful in general purpose desktop computing and needed a product targeted specifically at that space, and with backward compatibility in mind.