The release of Intel’s 8086 microprocessor in 1978 was a watershed moment for personal computing. The DNA of that chip is likely at the center of whatever computer—Windows, Mac, or Linux—you’re using ...

Here’s a peek at the events and technologies that led to the development of Intel’s x86 architecture, plus milestones in its 30-year reign. 1947: The transistor is invented at Bell Labs. 1965: Gordon ...

You’d think that the 8086 microprocessor, a 40-year-old chip with a mere 29,000 transistors on board that kicked off the 16-bit PC revolution, would have no more tales left to tell. But as [Ken ...

Video gamers know about cheat codes, but assembly language programmers are often in search of undocumented instructions. One way to find them is to map out all of a CPU’s opcodes and where there are ...

This is part of a series of posts about the circumstances leading up to the launch of the Altair 8800 in the January, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. In my last post, I talked about the dawn of the ...

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Forty years ago today, electronics and semiconductor trade newspaper Electronic News ran an advertisement for a new kind of chip. The Intel 4004, a $60 chip in a 16-pin dual in-line package, was an ...

The only remarkable thing about the product that revolutionized the personal computing business was the fact that IBM built it. If any other company of the era built and marketed the IBM Personal ...

The infamous quote "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home" by Digital Equipment Corporation founder Ken Olsen in 1977 is a perfect study of the prevailing corporate attitude ...