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Design a simple instruction set to begin with and leave room for later expansion -
main reason the x86 is so popular and long-lived.
Intel started with a relatively simple CPU and figured out how to extend the instruction set to accommodate new features.
IBM decided that open documentation is a good thing.
IBM published the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual, with everything the engineers knew about the machine, which was another reason for the success of the IBM PC platform.
See also: 25 Years of the IBM PC and CNN article Meet the inventor of Ctrl-Alt-Delete
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