> 68000 was carefully considered. "AN excellent architecture chip, it has proven to be a worthy competitor to the Intel-based architecture." there wer four major concerns:

> 1) 16 bit data path would require more bus buffers, therefore a more expensive system board.

> 2) more memory chips for a minimum configuration.

> 3) while it had a performance advantage, the 68000 was not as memory efficient.

> 4) Companion and support chips not as well covered as Intel.o

> He also felt the the 68000 didn't have as good software and support tools, and the similar register model allowed the porting of 8080 tools to the 8086/8088.

> "In summary the 8088 was selected because it allowed the lowest cost implementation of an architecture that provided a migration path to a larger address space and higher performance implementations. Because it was a unique choice relative to competitive system implementations, IBM could be viewed as a leader, rather than a follower. It had a feasible software migration path that allowed access to the large base of existing 8080 software. The 8088 was a comfortable solution for IBM. Was it the best processor architecture available at the time? Probably not, but history seems to have been kind to the decision."

I don't remember where I read about it, but I remember reading about that IBM ditched the 68008 (8 data bit bus version, like the 8088) because some problem with it... availability of it, perhaps.