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by flohofwoe 7 hours ago
> Also it's the year ~1980 and we're limited to the technology of the age.

Tbf the Motorola 68000 which was released around the same time (1979) had a proper linear address space with 32-bit address registers (of which 24 bits were wired up).

Also the 8086 was intended as a cheap and temporary stop gap until Intel's "proper" 32-bit CPU architecture was ready for prime time (the doomed iAPX 432).
2 comments
smallstepforman 7 hours ago
New platforms were 68000, old platforms with legacy code just wanted access to more memory, so 8086 segments allowed 64kb chunks. A hack only usable by folks that still wanted to run their old 64kb programs.

It would be a piece of trivia today if motorola were not 6 months late which forced IBM in frustration to change tracks to Intel and MS DOS instead (which worked on 8086). That 6 month drlay created WinTel of today.

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nwallin 32 minutes ago
The Motorola 68000 was roughly an order of magnitude more expensive than the Intel 8086.
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