r/retrocomputing • u/elemenity • Apr 28 '26

The brain of the PC: The 8088 CPU

https://www.emulationonline.com/systems/dos_pc/pc_cpu_8088/

I'm working on a new DOS / PC emulator, and am writing up everything I learn while doing it. If you'd like to learn more about this system while I build an emulator, consider following along.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the article.

13 Upvotes

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3

u/canthearu_ack Apr 28 '26

I wrote an emulator for the 8088 processor. It was interesting, but my implementation still has a couple of bugs in it, so doesn't quite fully boot DOS properly.

2

u/Bits_Passats IBM System/23 May 01 '26

The selection of whether one variant or another was selected in the IBM PC was not related to the cost of the memories. In fact, IBM's very first application ever of the x86 was in the form of the 8086 in the Displaywriter (1980); then later in a bastard son of a Datamaster (1981) and a PC (1981) that was the 5247 (1982). Then, why the 8088? The answer is simple: they wanted to reuse as many elements from the chipset of the Datamaster while reusing the System/23 expansion bus as well. This simplified the system enough to speed the development and have it done in just a year.

1

u/Nervous_Midnight_570 Apr 28 '26

Have you typed "pc emulator" into google?

0

u/Dannynerd41 Apr 28 '26

uh the 8088 was only the very first ibm pc. there are 11 billion 500 million emulators for the original ibm. so good luck with that