CPU history: A timeline of Microprocessors

The Seventies The seventies were a good time for intel, mostly because they were the first players in the game. Motorola jumped in rapidly thereafter, however, and brought out the ubiquitous 6800 and later the even more important 68000 during the same timeframe. Even today, however, 808x CPUs are more popular in embedded systems than the more powerful Motorola 68000, if for no other reason than inertia. Intel got there first, and got the ball rolling. A great deal of their installed base comes from the fact that the IBM PC and every clone of it thereafter carried an intel CPU.