The PC age began 45 years ago with the breakthrough Intel 8088 processor — 8-bit bus fueled 45 years of x86 dominance

Intel 8088 and the first IBM PC — (Image credit: Intel)

45 years ago, in August 1981, the PC age began in earnest with the launch of the IBM PC Model 5150. At its heart was the Intel 8088 microprocessor, a cheaper sibling of the processor that pioneered the x86 architecture, the famed Intel 8086. Intel’s new affordability-targeted processor, its IBM PC design win, and Big Blue’s decision to allow the making of PC clones would kickstart four and a half decades of PC compatibles dominating personal computing.

Forty-five years ago, the @IBM PC, powered by the Intel 8088 processor, helped bring personal computing to the masses—and helped establish x86 as a foundation for decades of innovation.Today, from the original PC era to AI-enabled computing, Intel continues building on that… pic.twitter.com/yu13Iqn0YwAugust 14, 2026

It is interesting to read about why sales engineer Earl Whetstone managed to return to Intel with a signed and sealed deal for supplying the Intel 8088 (June 1979), while the superior 8086 (June 1978) was overlooked. In a nutshell, it is the economics that won it for the Intel 8088.

Bits and busses

Intel’s influential Intel 8086 delivered the first x86 architecture chip and had a 16-bit internal architecture, with a matching 16-bit external data bus. Meanwhile, the 8088, introduced a year later, took that design and sliced the external data bus width in half, to 8-bit. This would make the newer 8088 slower, probably just into double digits, all else being equal. However, the 8088 was cheaper and also allowed IBM to pick up common 1980s-era components to configure the Model 5150, which also boosted system affordability.

There have been over a dozen x86 processor manufacturers

Commenting on this important date for Intel, IBM, and the birth of the PC industry as we know it, analyst Patrick Moorhead tweeted about the diverse canon of x86 processor manufacturers over the years. In addition to Intel and AMD, most computer history buffs will be familiar with Cyrix x86, and perhaps even efforts from IBM, NEC, and NexGen. However, Moorhead reminds us that NEC also made x86 chips, as have Texas Instruments, IDT (Centaur Technology), Rise Technology, SGS-Thomson, and Transmeta.

Moorhead’s dozen wasn’t even a fully complete list. Others on social media pointed out that the following firms may have (if memory serves correctly) produced x86 chips at some point: ALi/ULi, Harris, Fujitsu, and Zhaoxin.

Into the AI-computing era

On its IBM partnership giving birth to the PC age, Intel concluded its anniversary message by saying “We look forward to continuing that teamwork for another 45 years and beyond.”

However, we note that Intel also talks about building on the legacy of the original PC into the AI-computing age. Ironically, it is the AI boom that has caused many people to be priced out of new PCs, new components, and/or upgrades in the last few months.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

28 Comments Comment from the forums

drea.drechsler

And what about Zilog's Z80 that came out in 1976 and powered the TRS-80 (affectionately known as "Trash-80") among many others. The TRS-80 came out in 1979 and, running CP/m, continued to outsell IBM PC's into the consumer market before the clones came available.

I'm not saying the 8088 or IBM PC's weren't significant, just not the beginning of the PC age... maybe the beginning of the "IBM-PC age".

I also can't see how it's 8-bit bus fueled x86 dominance since it couldn't even logically start until the 8086 with its 16 bit bus came out in IBM-PC clones.
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mrdoc22

No, 31 years.
I’d say it got off to a slow start with the 80386 and then really took off with the first 3D addon graphicscard in 1995. It was only then, I’d say, that the PC became established as a standard – there were many other computer standards that it could have been istead.
Reply
TerryLaze

drea.drechsler said:
And what about Zilog's Z80 that came out in 1976
And what about the 6502 that came out in 1975?
(Apple II , c64 , atari 8bit)
Reply
mrdoc22

TerryLaze said:
And what about the 6502 that came out in 1975?
(Apple II , c64 , atari 8bit)
Yes, that’s exactly the problem:

PC people call them ‘home computers’, whilst they regard a PC as a serious computer for businesses.
The name ‘Personal Computer’ (PC), which IBM came up with, is incorrect;
they should have called it CC, ‘Company Computer’, because it was developed for businesses.

If Apple, Commodore and Atari had been smart back in the 1980s, they would have set the standard today.
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drea.drechsler

mrdoc22 said:
...
The name ‘Personal Computer’ (PC), which IBM came up with, is incorrect;
they should have called it CC, ‘Company Computer’, because it was developed for businesses.

If Apple, Commodore and Atari had been smart back in the 1980s, they would have set the standard today.
Except this was also the age of IBM mainframes running their businesses so IBM was the name they'd want on the personal computers on their desktops to distinguish them from the 'company computer' that's locked up in the freezing cold computer room.

It really was the clone makers: Compaq, Dell, Leading Edge, Acer, Gateway and others that made the "IBM PC" platform more affordable and spurred acceptance in it as a consumer product.

But ironically, not many in senior management wanted them in the offices, at least in my company. We had a devil of a time with management who didn't want us to have them: thought they were toys. We had to sneak them in as "controllers" or "development stations" attached to production equipment PO's. By the time senior management noticed all the PC's on the engineer's desks it was too late!
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mrdoc22

drea.drechsler said:
Except this was also the age of IBM mainframes running their businesses, so IBM was the name they'd want on the personal computers on their desktops.

But really, not many in management wanted them. I had a devil of a time with my management who didn't want us to have them: thought they were toys. We had to sneak them in as "controllers" or "development stations" for production equipment. By the time senior management noticed all the PC's on the engineer's desks it was too late!
IBM PC's was too expensive, and the started the "PC compatible area",
Where a lot of new companys build PC's, where some come closer than other to the PC standard.
(Not talking about CPU's), they got the nickname "bamboo PCs", they work most of the time.

Back then the eletroniccomponents was not as high productionstandard as we have today.
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drea.drechsler

mrdoc22 said:
IBM PC's was too expensive, and the started the "PC compatible area",
Where a lot of new companys build PC's, where some come closer than other to the PC standard.
(Not talking about CPU's), they got the nickname "bamboo PCs", they work most of the time.
Leading Edge I think would fit that description, made by Mitsubishi Electric. We bought several as 'development stations'... they were way cheaper than IBM pc's and clocked faster. Ran DOS perfectly (not hard I guess) even had 5MB hard drives PC-XT style. They were the hot stuff on campus until someone got the first 80286 IBM PC-AT.
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Findecanor

The Z80 and the 8088 both have lineage (in various ways) back to the Intel 8080.
It is the CPU that CPM was made to run on. The Z80 is just binary backwards-compatible with it.

After the 8080, Intel's main CPU project was actually the iAPX 432, which was supposed to be ground-breaking with many new features... but much like the later Itanium, it was a bloated expensive design that was slower than its predecessor.
Because that would take a long time to get to market there was a gap in the market, and Intel designed the 8086 from the 8080 with 16-bit extensions to fill that gap.
The 8086 is not backwards-compatible but the similarities are obvious in the opcode map.
The 8088 is a variation with an 8-bit data bus to allow systems for it to be made less expensive.

The term "personal computer" was coined long before the "IBM PC". It meant simply that it had one user (at a time), to differentiate it from mainframe computers that were used for one task, or by multiple users at a time. Whether it was for home or office use was of no matter.
Then IBM co-opted the term for their product.
So "The PC age" is really a short form of "The personal computing age".
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mac2213

Much is written about Intel's success, their rise and fall and return to greatness recently. To really understand it, you have to understand Intel starting in 1978, the Crush Campaign, Earl Whetstone and the role he and Sales played for the next 20+ years along with Intel's evolution away from a Memory company to A CPU/IDM model and marketing machine that Andy and Dennis Carter created. The TMG engine built by many, but led by Gerry Parker for years drove the profits that enabled Intel to become Intel. Pat upon his return to Intel set about recreating a renewed IDM model. Lip is now building on Pat's work, with a sales and marketing flair that reminds me of Andy, Dennis and Earl.
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johnrock2

Saying IBM made the decision to allow pc clones to be made is some borderline revisionism. The fact is that IBM did make an open architecture by choosing to use off the shelf parts, but they never intended for other companies to make whole IBM PC compatible machines. They made the BIOS and copyrighted the code and sued the pants off anyone that tried to use it or a modified version in their PC clones. That was IBMs strategy, you can't have a PC clone unless it runs PC specific code, and that to IBM meant running their copyrighted code.

The reason PC clones took off at all is because Compaq came around and pioneered the use of the clean room method of reverse engineering. They took the BIOS and worked out all its functions as plain English and handed that to a separate team who could claim to have never seen IBMs code and reimplement all its functions with a clean room version. IBM couldn't do anything about it so Compaq was free to sell its machines as pc compatible. Other companies followed suit and the rest is history.
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