
Intel also produced the 8088 around the same time. The 8086 also became the first x86 processor, and it used the first revision of the x86 ISA, which nearly all of the processors created by AMD or Intel since the introduction of the 8086 have been based on. The address bus was extended to 20-bit, which enabled the 8086 to access up to 1MB of memory and therefore increase performance.
#Amd procssor history software#
It was also able to run 16-bit tasks (though most software at this time was designed for eight-bit processors).

Not only was it clocked higher than the budget-oriented 8088, but it also employed a 16-bit external data bus and a longer six-byte prefetch queue. Intel's first 16-bit processor was the 8086, which helped to boost performance considerably compared to earlier designs. The 8085 was essentially a less expensive and higher-clocked variant of the 8080, which was highly successful as well though less influential. As a result, the 8080s and key hardware elements have been present inside of all x86-based processor ever produced, and 8080 software can technically still run on any x86 processor. The 8080 was used in countless devices, which lead to several software developers, such as the recently formed Microsoft, to focus on software for Intel's processors.Įventually when the 8086 was released, it was made source compatible with the 8080 to maintain backwards compatibility with this software. This allowed Intel to more than double the clock rates, and the highest-performance 8080 chips in 1974 came running at 2 MHz. It expanded on the design of the 8008 by adding new instructions and transitioning to six-micrometer transistors. The 8008 used 10-micrometer transistor technology. It was faster than the 4004 thanks to its ability to process data in eight-bit chunks, but it was clocked rather conservatively between 200 and 800 kHz, and the 8008's performance simply didn't attract many system developers. Although the 8008 was the first eight-bit processor produced by Intel, it is not as notable as its predecessor or its successor, the 8080.

The 4004 made a name for Intel in the microprocessor business, and to capitalize on the situation, Intel introduced a new line of eight-bit processors.
