The original IBM PC product code was "5150".
"5150" is the LAPD code for a mentally ill person.
Coincidence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer (first paragraph)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-code (bottom of aritcle)
Discuss!
Seriously, that's a pretty random topic to start
Yes, it does seem that way.
In my day job I have many duties. Often times I will speak with colleges and vendors and need to convey device serial numbers, passwords, usernames, etc... Each time I did this I fumbled through my partial knowledge of the NATO call signs. So I finally looked them up on Wikipedia, and a little chart that is now taped to my monitor.
While on that page I saw a link for the LAPD phonetic alphabet signs and wondered why it would be different from the NATO one. I then got lost on the interwebs for a few minutes. When I came to, I remembered that the IBM XT had product code 5150 (I used to own such a beast). So I looked that up too and learned that I was wrong. The XT is 5160; the PC is 5150.
And then I posted, because I thought that it was a strange coincidence. But I'm pretty sure that it is unrelated. The IBM PC was designed at IBM's office in Boca Raton, Florida in 1980. That's kinda far away from Califronia. But I was slightly amused anyway.
If only IBM had actually gone with the 68000 instead of turning it down in favor of the 8088, then the PC architecture might not have been so 5150.
I think that they choose the 8088 because it was a cheaper version of the 8086, and they wanted Intel's chip because it was bass-ackwards compatible with the 8085, which could run CP/M software. Just a guess though.
The 8086 was only source compatible with 8080 and 8085, not binary compatible. In effect, the 8086 was designed such that the macros for assembling 8080 assembly would be simple. It'd be possible to implement 8080 asm as 68K macros, but probably not pretty.
Factoid: The 8086 has data lines multiplexed with the lower address lines, much like the NES PPU and the GBA cart bus.
Yes, I know. I've been using 80x86 and 6502 assembly for almost the same length of time, since 1986 and 1988, respecitvely.