Comment by rsynnott
13 days ago
The 386SX was a similar story, and is normally thought of as basically 32bit. I think the perception difference may be down to timing; the 386SX came out _after_ the DX (with 32 bit data bus), so was thought of as a cheap 32bit chip, vs the 68000 which started off life with a 16bit data bus.
(Fun fact: there was also the 68008, which was a 68k with an 8 bit bus!)
From memory, the primary advantage of the 386SX was the ability to use a cheaper 16-bit motherboard layout and components. The lack of a 32bit bus mattered less when most software was written with 286 compatibility in mind, and the ISA bus was only 16-bits wide, which limited the utility of the 32-bit bus for fast graphics transfers.
The reduced 24-bit address bus was never a significant bottleneck during its commercial lifetime, as little consumer software at the time would require more than 4mb of RAM, and by the time it did the 486SX (32bit busses with no maths coprocessor) was the new value champion.
The 286/386SX/486SLC could address 16MB, the full 24 bit address space.
> the ISA bus was only 16-bits wide, which limited the utility of the 32-bit bus for fast graphics transfers.
Not only that, it was 8MHz to match the speed of the fastest IBM AT. VLB on a 486/33 or 66 ran at 33 MHz and was a godsend, 8x the bandwidth of 16-bit ISA.
The 68008 saw a lot of use in embedded and could easily create a whole microcomputer on a breadboard.
And was also used in the Sinclair QL.