END OF A SURPRISINGLY LONG ERA

So of course the 80386 must have gone the same way of all the other ancient chips, discounted by Intel in the long-ago before-time of... September 2007?!

This is because Intel provided the chip for use in so- called “embedded systems” rather than personal computers. The military in particular liked the 80386, because it remained usefully powerful and extremely tough and cheap. It even appeared ( in a highly customisable form) in the BlackBerry 950 and Nokia 9000 Communicator mobile phones.

Nowadays of course we have “system on a chip” units, application- specific integrated circuits, and fieldprogrammable gate arrays. So at last, the doughty 80386 can rest.