8088 vs. 80c88

[Les Hildenbrandt]

There was also the NEC V20, which was pin for pin compatible with the 
8088.  It was a CMOS part.  There were a few instructions that the V20 
executed in fewer clock cycles than the 8088 (multiply comes to mind), 
causing some motherboard vendors to install a V20, and the sell a 10mhz 
motherboard as a 12mhz motherboard.

The truly great feature of the V20 was the 8080 emulation mode.  When a 
special opcode was executed, the processor switched to 8080 mode, a very 
fast 8080.  I made several CP/M (80) systems using a V20 processor, with 
a small prom to put the v20 into 8080 mode.  I could then switch back 
into 16 bit mode to implement a ram disk.

Les