Re: What about Assembly Language?
Although the Motorola 68000 was available around the same timeframe as the 808x processors from Intel, the corresponding peripheral chips weren't. And the 68008 (used in the QL), which allowed the use of some 6800 peripheral chips was a few years later still.
The team creating the IBM PC were trying to work under the covers, because the IBM leadership were worried about a functional desktop computer undermining the sales of their other systems. So the PC team were not able to leverage IBM's name to make chip suppliers change their delivery schedules.
As a result, they went with the 8088, which allowed them to use a lot of existing, off the shelf 8 bit peripheral suport chips from both the 8080 and Z80 families, which were available, cheap, and widely understood. And you have to remember that the systems they thought they would be selling against were the Apple ][ and it's follow up systems.
It made sense to them at the time, even though in hindsight it was the wrong decision.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
