My Uncle and Vintage 286 Computer

You may well have heard your uncle or fatherbeing upstaged on their own playing field.
spouting odd numbers in their portrayals of theirI
great computer expertise - 286, 386, and 8088Next in line along the route of vintage computer
and on and on. Confused ? What do theseevolution was the 80286 chip. Designed by Intel in
numbers mean. After all I know are Pentium1981 the 286 packed a wallop of more power
computers and perhaps a few other models suchthat the 8088 did. The 80286 is the equivalent of
as Dell, IBM and Intel Duo Core. Processors. Theseabout 130,000 transistors in the actual similar
model numbers refer to the lineage of Intelvolume of the 8088's 29,000 transistors. Not
Central Processing Units (CPUs) that are found inunexpectedly similar to the heat production
modernproblem of todays Pentium type computers extra
To begin with the 8088 is the oldest of the earlycooling requirement is needed. We are left today
PC central Processing Unit (CPU) variant models.in our modern computers with the benefits of the
which means a rectangular case with two rows offoresight of the electronic engineers of the day
20 pins. DIP stands for Dual In-Line Package. Olderwith the inventions of various types of heat sinks.
80800 CPUs are called 8088-2. As they can onlyHeat sinks one way or another are in effect
run at lower speeds (believe it not 5 MHz orradiators to dispel heat in a similar means and
slower compared to a now 4000 MHz computer).manner to you might have in your car.
By the way the 8088 had the equivalent ofLastly came the 386 chipset which is the direct
approximately 27,000 transistors.predecessor of our modern Pentiums.
Competition from non IBM PC makers - "cloneThe chip is properly called the 80386 by the still
makers" who built computers out of the sameleading chip manufacture Intel. Introduced in 1985,
components as "real" IBM PC. These hot roddersthe 80386 comes in a PGA package and is the
of their day souped up this first PC chip versionequivalent of about 250,000 transistors. The 386
to unheard of speeds It was not only computervariants a wealth of programming features
speed that powered the sales growth for theincluding the core vital ability to multitask DOS
clone makers. It must be remembered that preprograms with the help of "hyerpervisor"
IBM PC all of IBM's computer hardware was madeprograms like DesqView /386 or VRM/386. Its 32
in house for IBM. The IBM PC - Personalbit data path speeds data access. Interestingly it
Computer was remarkable in that most of thetook later hardware in the next 486 era chips to
components were all third party - that is made byfully take broad scale advantage of these built in
outside suppliers whose names Indeed the agreedinnovations.
to standards were often those developed alreadyInterestingly enough there was also a downsized
for products inn production. At the worst theyless costly and powerful example sporting a similar
were now IBM standardized. The die was set,moniker name of CPU called the 386SX. The
when people such as Michael Dell realized that386SX was identical except to the real 386
they could put together an IBM PC look-alikeversion - the 386DX except for the vital fact that
work alike and sell it for $ 3,000 rather than theit had a 16 bit data path which it was said allowed
approximate $ 10,000 for the authentic IBM PCit be more easily incorporated into earlier and less
they were off and running. Although it was oftencostly AT type 286 16 bit computer hardware.
said of corporate buyers that "You can never goImagine the confusion at the time in computer
wrong buying IBM" for the then geeks andbuyers who did not have access to ready
amateur computer users it was an entirelyinformation as we do today on the internet. Many
different business plan. They were referred to aspeople bought what they thought were an
"Turbo" PCs.advanced 386 computer when in essence they
However it was not only cost that propelled thehad a much downsized version. Most likely they
computer industry onwards. If it was not for thewere more than impressed with their own
innovators - the clone maker's engineers at suchresearch, computer buying and bargaining skills.
companies as Compaq Computer you might stillIn the end though you get what you pay for. The
be using that now primitive IBM PC running at 5fabled John Dvorak "Dvorak's Law is that "No
MHz. The Turbo PC/XT clones ran at the thenmatter what they tell you your next computer
unbelievable and unheard of speed of 6.6, 7.16 andwill cost you..." At the time of the 8088 it was $
even 8.0 MHz. Giant IBM the monolith computer10,000 then $ 5,000 $, $ 3,000, $ 1500 now $
industry leader was not only being made to look500- 800 perhaps.
foolish with .the likes of Apple Computer in farIn the end you get a tremendous amount for
away California but now that they had releasedvalue for your money. Even though it may be
their long heralded personal computer they weresaid as well that you get what you pay for.