When AMD came out with their 386 it was quite popular as the fastest Intel 386DX clocked in at a blazing 33Mhz, while the AMD part was 40Mhz, and cheaper. I remember it being quite popular.

There was even these weird hybrid boards that would use a surface mount AM386 for the default CPU then leave a 486 socket for ‘future expansion’ .. And again I recall these being somewhat popular, as while my friends either had 486DX2-66’s or the AM386, I managed to get a 486SX-16 (which happily overclocked to 33Mhz) from someone who upgraded..

I don’t ever remember there being any compatibility issues with the AM386 chip. Although at the time so many ‘budget’ or cheap systems revolved around crap boards, or even real crap static ram caches..

DesqView was what added multitasking on top of QEMM… but yes, Windows/386 in 1987 was certainly a sign of things to come. I think much of the basic architecture survived until Windows Me 🙂

The Am386 was interesting in that it was the first 386 clone and also extremely compatible. I never had one myself, but many of my friends had those 40MHz AMD 386s in the early to mid-1990s.

Windows/386 was like a tech preview of what was to come… Or what the 386 was capable of with v86 mode.. Now if QEMM or 386max could multitask v86 machines then they’d be slightly more interesting (well more so to me..!).

I think IBM bought into Intel as part of the whole PC thing wasn’t it?

Also I was going to expand on how the 286 licensing gave AMD their in for making their own 386 compatible chips, and how even IBM created that blue lightening thing, the 486sx in a 386sx package…

funny to think so many chip vendors were going to strike it rich copying the 386, and yet almost none of them are around today.

As for leading the charge into the V86 world, I’d say Windows/386 was way behind EMM386 and friends (QEMM386, 386MAX). I also think that with all its flaws, V86 mode was what won the CPU wars for Intel. There was tremendous demand to run all sorts of old DOS junk in modern operating systems and the V86 mode made it possible with good performance and reasonably hassle-free.

Oh and incidentally, IBM in the 1980s owned somewhere around 10% of Intel, which may be why they had special arrangements.