Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/07/23/ibm_mii_x86_chip_rises/

IBM M-II x86 chip rises from the ashes….

Phoenix resurrected by Time

By Mike Magee

Posted in On-Prem, 23rd July 1999 12:15 GMT

One small component in our story yesterday about Time introducing a so-called Free PC is a very small component called the 300 IBM M-II microprocessor. (Story: It's time for another free PC) Readers with long teeth will remember that under the terms of a deal between Cyrix and IBM, half of the silicon was doled out to Big Blue's Microelectronics division. Big Blue then went on to do and say ridiculous things, such as their M-II was "better" than Cyrix's M-II, flood the channel with cheap M-IIs and other underhand tricks of that ilk. But it appears that the IBM version of the Cyrix chip is not dead, if the Time spec is anything to go by. Are there, then, thousands of these little Big Blue processors sitting in warehouses, ready to emerge in future Free PCs to come? We think we should be told... ®