one inch frame

Maker of the world’s most popular line of microprocessors. Intel almost single-handedly created a market for personal computers with their early chips like the 8080. Current personal computers, with very few exceptions, can trace their lineage directly back to the 8088/8086 chips from the early 1980s. Current editions of Windows and Linux still use instruction sets compatible with the 80386, the third (or fourth, depending on how you count) generation of “x86” hardware, from the early 1990s. Current processors are generally considered the sixth generation, or “686,” which began with the Pentium Pro processor in 1995.

Beginning with the Pentium, Intel stopped using numbers for their processors. The 80486DX2-66 was the last processor to officially use the “x86” moniker, when a court ruled that Intel could not trademark numbers. Every processor since that time has been a variant of the “Pentium” line, though people that know have used the “586” moniker for the Pentium and Pentium-MMX lines only. The “Pentium Pro” processor began the “686” line, still used today, even in Intel’s latest chips, known as “Core.”