"Who knows, by the time Nehalems come in six months or so, we might see one of them coded 80586 again"

You really don't know what in the world you are talking about..

Six months or so?

Yeah,fat chance.Try a year.

When I read computer magazine @ late 1996, I read an article that say:
585 = pentium
686 = pentium pro - pentium III
786 = willmate

In the 1996 pentium is known as P5. All motherboard @ that time use P5 as suffix. That thing is dejavu again with presscott (ie the P5 suffix). AND I Thing when intel lauch it P5x chipset, this will be happend again.

This is quite interesting but with all those letters, at least initially, a chart or crib sheet would be nice to help decider all the numbers and letter, but still much easier than the marketing names. When I read the title I was hoping to see a listing of all the main cpus since the 486 to see the evolution of the numbering system.

The only issue I see is that these numbers do not seem like a continuation of the original 80x86 numbering system, even the x87 match co-processor numbering made sense and fit with the main numbering system.

Not sure what the 80 denoted but the numbers 1-5 denoted the generation and the 86 of course denoted the architecture.

Its too bad these ones aren't something like 80A86 or 801086 with additional letting and numbers to denote smaller differences. & because Netburst was a very different x86 like architecture and should not count, so PII=PentiumPro=686, PIII=786, PM=886, Core=986, and Core2=A86 or 1086 (think hex for the A). That type of number was what I was expecting to be reading about, but I could get used to the newer system.


Enough of my ramblings, great article anyways


"These are still 5-digit wonders, all smaller than the last 'official' one, the 80586."

You do know that the first Pentiums were called 500, 501 and 502?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium

...that numbers 1 to 4 in the internal numbering scheme (80569XJ080) give you 9650 for the Core 2 Extreme QX 9650 FSB1333, when spelled backwards? I think not... :)

It's amazing how it takes the Inquirer to write an article talking about Intel's Box Order Codes. They're nothing magical, but hey if it floats your boat!