The 80188 is a version with an 8-bit external data bus, instead of 16-bit. This makes it less expensive to connect to peripherals. The 80188 is otherwise very similar to the 80186. It has a throughput of 1 million
instructions per secondInstructions per second is a measure of a computer's processor speed. Many reported IPS values have represented "peak" execution rates on artificial instruction sequences with few branches, whereas realistic workloads typically lead to significantly lower IPS values...
.
In personal computers
The 80186 would have been a natural successor to the
8086The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and mid-1978, when it was released. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture of Intel's future processors...
in personal computers. However, because its integrated hardware was incompatible with the hardware used in the original IBM PC, the
80286The Intel 80286 , introduced on 1 February 1982, was a 16-bit x86 microprocessor with 134,000 transistors. Like its contemporary simpler cousin, the 80186, it could correctly execute most software written for the earlier Intel 8086 and 8088...
was used as the successor instead in the IBM PC/AT.
Few
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s used the 80186, with some notable exceptions: the Australian
Dulmont MagnumThe Dulmont Magnum was an early laptop computer designed and marketed by Dulmison Pty Ltd in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Magnum was also known internationally as the Kookaburra, and was on the market from 1982 to 1986...
laptop, one of the first laptops; the
WangWang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...
Office Assistant, marketed as a PC-like stand-alone word processor; the
MindsetThe Mindset was sold around spring of 1984 as a high-end graphics workstation which was somewhat PC compatible. Based on Intel's 80186, it had proprietary VLSI chips that enhanced and sped up the graphics. It also had dual front-mounted ROM cartridge ports which had a unique locking knob on the...
; the
SiemensSiemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
PC-D (not 100% IBM PC-compatible but using
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
2.11 :de:Siemens PC-D); the
CompisCompis , Scandis was a computer system designed and sold to schools beginning 1984. Since it was intended for educational use, it received the name Compis, which is short for COMPuter In School. The name can also be interpreted as a pun on the Scandinavian word kompis, meaning friend or pal...
(a
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
school computer); the RM Nimbus (a British school computer); the
Unisys ICONThe ICON was a computer built specifically for use in schools, to fill a standard created by the Ontario Ministry of Education. They were widely used, mostly in high schools in the mid- to late 1980s, but disappeared after that time with the widespread introduction of PCs and Apple Macintoshes...
(a Canadian school computer); ORB Computer by ABS; the HP 100LX,
HP 200LXThe HP 200LX is a personal digital assistant introduced by Hewlett-Packard in 1994. It was often called a palmtop computer, and it was notable that it was, with some minor exceptions, a MS-DOS-compatible computer in a palmtop format, complete with a monochrome graphic display, QWERTY keyboard,...
, HP 1000CX and HP OmniGo 700LX; the
Tandy 2000The Tandy 2000 was a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in late 1983 which used the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor. By comparison, the IBM PC XT used the older 4.7 MHz 8088 processor, and the IBM PC AT would later use the newer 6 MHz Intel 80286...
desktop (a somewhat PC-compatible workstation with sharp graphics for its day); the Philips :YES; the
Nokia MikroMikko 2MikroMikko was a Finnish line of microcomputers released by Nokia Corporation's computer division Nokia Data from 1981 through 1987. MikroMikko was Nokia Data's attempt to enter the business computer market...
.
AcornAcorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro, and the Acorn Archimedes...
created a plug-in for the BBC Master range of computers containing a 80186-10 with 512 KB of RAM, the Master 512 system.
In May 2006, Intel announced that production of the 186 would cease at the end of September 2007. Pin- and instruction-compatible replacements might still be manufactured by various 3rd party sources.
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