Intel 8086

The Intel 8086 is the successor to the Intel 8085 and was released in 1978. It notably introduced the x86 architecture which is still widely used nowadays. It was originally designed to run at 5 MHz, and contains 29000 transistors.

The chips were mainly incorporated in 40-pin DIP packages and manufactured with a 3 µm process. These packages can be found as purple (C8086) and grey (D8086) ceramic versions as well as plastic (P8086) ones.

Intel C8086 Intel D8086 CS Intel P8086
  • A Purple Ceramic C8086. Bottom: Malaysia, 1978 Week 32.
  • A Grey Ceramic D8086, with CS (Customer Sample) stamps. Bottom: Malaysia, 1979 Week 13.
  • A Plastic P8086. Bottom. Philippines, 1985 Week 51.

In 1979, Intel released the 8088, a modified 8086 with an 8-bit external data bus rather than 16, allowing cheaper integration. IBM has chosen the 8088 for its IBM 5150 (IBM Personal Computer) released in 1981, and most current desktop and laptop computers are still based on its architecture.

Intel D8088 Intel P8088
  • A Grey Ceramic D8088. Bottom: USA, 1979 Week 14.
  • A Plastic P8088. Bottom. Philippines, 1983 Week 18.

In 1982, the Intel 80186 and Intel 80286 succeeded it.

In 2018, the Intel Core i7 8086K was released to commemorate the 40 years of the 8086.

Intel 8087 Coprocessor

The Intel 8087 was released in 1980 and is a copressor that could be paired with a 8086 or 8088 in order to accelerate applications doing intensive floating point calculations as these could be delegated to the coprocessor, which also performed them much faster.

Intel PCNC8087/2 Box Intel C8087 Intel D8087
  • A PCNC8087/2 Box. We don't have the original C8087 that came with it. Back, Label. October 8, 1987.
  • A Purple Ceramic C8087. Bottom. Malaysia, 1986 Week 8.
  • A Grey Ceramic D8087. Bottom. Malaysia, 1988 Week 32.