ORIGINAL: Access
Intel 8088... I haven't seen one of those in 15 years. When was that built?
Yes, the 8088 is old as the hills. I believe we actually used an 80C88. I think I built it in 2004, I'll have to check my notes
. The curricula at Cal State Long Beach had everyone using that processor for their junior level Microprocessor design course. They have since switched to a Philips 8051 variant, I think it was the P89V51RD2 and now they are using another 8051 device variant made by Atmel.
I'm assuming that the reason they force the students to use the 8088 is because you have to use support chips to access the lower 8-bits of the multiplexed address and data bus along with the bus decoding and interface duties you're required to implement. I guess it makes for a good introductory academic exercise in hardware and software development.