Intel had a hit on its hands with the 8080 CPU and its successor, the 8085. But then Zilog came along and stole its thunder with the compatible but superior Z-80. Intel needed to follow up with something a lot better. The 8086 was what they came up with. The advantages of 8086 over 8085 were numerous, and that’s why everyone knows Intel, and few people outside of retro computing enthusiasts and embedded systems engineers ever heard of Zilog.
Here are the major advantages of 8086 over 8085.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
