NEC V20: The $10 CPU That Made Your IBM XT 20% Faster
NEC V20 CPU: A bit of pep for an XT
The NEC V20 was a pin-compatible Intel 8088 replacement that ran 8–30% faster, with hardware multiply/divide three times quicker. After a 1986 court win against Intel, it became a cheap upgrade for XT-class machines, especially those with nonstandard motherboards like the Tandy 1000 or PCjr. Today it remains a popular period-correct mod, with chips selling for $10–$25 on eBay.
On September 22, 1986, NEC prevailed over Intel in court, clearing the way to sell it.
- tom_
I just got served a big chunk of JSON, not even pretty-printed, with the text in there... somewhere. Difficulty level: quite high, even in reader mode.
(same on macOS+Firefox and iPhone+Safari)
- rbanffy
I knew it was possible to run CP/M programs (and CP/M itself) on my PC with its V20, but I never found out how.
- bell-cot
Not mentioned - the NEC V30 CPU, which was the V20's 8086-replacement near-twin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_V20#Variants_and_successor...
IIR, the V30 provided a notably better improvement (over the 8086), because the 16-bit memory bus meant it was less often starved for bandwidth.