The original IBM XT (edit: corrected from 'IBM PC' which was an earlier model with even less RAM) only had 128 KByte RAM, that's not different from a C128, CPC1

The original IBM XT (edit: corrected from 'IBM PC' which was an earlier model with even less RAM) only had 128 KByte RAM, that's not different from a C128, CPC128 or Speccy, and some 8-bit home computers could be upgraded to around 1 MByte too (which would have been prohibitively expensive in the early 80's, but technically possible). And performance wise, bank switching on an 8-bit machine wasn't much more expensive than updating the segment register on an x86 The main advantage of "proper" 16 bit CPUs was the wider databus and ALU. But a wider ALU doesn't help all that much when it is held back by an 8-bit data bus (like the 8088). Also obligatory: Amiga forever! :D