2 Likes
Great story, Thanks! And it started to bring back some memories but I had just entered the workforce after putting myself through 2 degrees so by the time I had a little extra cash, I was building CPM machines from surplus boards bought from the pages of Micro Cornucopia just as 8088 clones were hitting the market. I later got into the mobile sector with Palm Pilots while keeping an eye on the Apple Newton and learning about their processor choice. 
Crazy to think how Intel ended up owning the StrongARM design when they purchased Digital Equipment Corp(DEC), made their first update and because of a design flaw the chip didn’t run 2x faster than the predecessor which screwed the pooch for all those PDA vendors who’d designed for the new chip and their product performance sucked. Wondering if it wasn’t on purpose… Intel sold out of the ARM processor business by selling StrongARM to Marvell in 2006.
IBM, MIPS, Sun Micro(SPARC) and others build on the RISC architecture but it’s funny how the little olde ARM is the one taking over the world. Just another example of Clayton Chirstenson’s “Innovators Dilemma” in action.
2 Likes