Intel 80186

processor A microprocessor developed by Intel circa

1982. The 80186 was an improvement on the Intel 8086 and

Intel 8088. As with the 8086, it had a 16-bit externalbus and was also available as the Intel 80188, with an

8-bit external data bus. The initial clock rate of the

80186 and 80188 was 6 MHz. They were not used in many

computers, but one notable exception was the Mindset, a very

advanced computer for the time. They were used as embeddedprocessors.

One major function of the 80186/80188 series was to reduce the

number of chips required.

"To satisfy this market, we defined a processor with a

significant performance increase over the 8086 that also

included such common peripheral functions as

software-controlled wait state and chip select logic, three

timers, priority interrupt controller, and two channels of DMA

(direct memory access). This processor, the 80186, could

replace up to 22 separate VLSI (very large scale integration)

and TTL (transistor-transistor logic) packages and sell for

less than the cost of the parts it replaced."

-- Paul Wells of Intel Corporation writing in Byte (reference

below)

New instructions were also introduced as follows:

ENTER Make stcak frame for procedure parameters

LEAVE High-level procedure exit

PUSHA Push all general registers

POPA Pop all general registers

BOUND Check array index against bounds

IMUL Signed (integer) multiply

INS Input from port to string

OUTS Output string to port

["The Evolution of the iAPX 286", Bob Greene, Intel

Corporation, PC Tech Journal, December 1984, page 134].

["The 80286 Microprocessor", Paul Wells, Intel Corporation,

Byte, November 1984, p. 231].

(1999-05-10)