Anon (no.delete@this.spam.com) on January 9, 2020 4:12 am wrote:
> gallier2 (gallier2.delete@this.gmx.de) on January 9, 2020 3:19 am wrote:
> > The importance for 8 bit compatibility at that time is also shown by the fact that NEC
> > designed its V20/V30 clones with binary 8080 compatibility. If it wasn't perceived as important
> > they would not have bothered, even if in hindsight it was completely useless.
>
> Nec V20 were 8086 compatible, it was released after IBM PC.
>
As Adrian already mentioned, it had also a 8080 mode where it could execute native 8 bit code.
My point was only to show that at that time, migration path from the 8 bit code was considered important enough to warrant engineers to take it in account in their work. It was meant as a counter to your sentiment

> They were marketed as source compatible[...], I am not sure this was important either,

which I think is wrong. It waned later when the PC became the industry standard (which btw was not when the IBM-PC was introduced, but later when the clone industry started to gain steam).