Is 8086 microcontroller really outdated?

[x_zion]

Hi everyone,
I want to do a project using 8086 microcontroller but some people say it is outdated.
Is it really outdated....

 

[xaccto]

Yes, in terms of a computer chip that must interface to external memory for
code and data - it most certainly is. Who would manufacture a board with 8086 today when there are a range of Pentium chips for example, have you heard of them?

If you have the chip, its probably ok for learning process of traditional microprocessor configuration....I did that ages ago with z80.
If you have many socket prototype boards, you can wire a up system. The clock
speeds are not too great that it works on prototype boards even though there's usually a mess of wire going every which way.....

On a side note, there are single chips available today with clock speeds many times that of 8086, on board program and ram space etc...thats what you look at for many embedded systems

 

[FvM]

8086 isn't available as a single-chip microcontroller, you'll need at least an external program memory to operate an embedded 8086 chip.

I assume that you are referring to 16-Bit real mode x86 processors, not embedded pentium and similar. Many embedded x86 processors are no longer manufactured, e.g NEC V25 and V40 series and most embedded Intel and AMD 186 processors. Some are made by second source manufacturers, a few new x86 processors have been released in the last 10 years, e.g. from Lantronix. It's still used in many active products.

 

[ckshivaram]

8086 is a processor family released in late 1978...... its outdated in most of the countries..

its production was stopped in 2004... it ruled the market for about 15 years and slowly started to decline by early 2000... It became obselete because of many controllers came to market with very powerful features.... people tend to get old chips and play with it even today......