Motorola Inc. is one of the leading manufacturers of
microprocessors. Until the early 1990s, Motorola microprocessors were used in all
Apple Macintosh computers and in many
workstations. Following the development of its 68040
chip in 1989, however, Motorola changed its focus from the 680x0 line of
CISC chips to
RISC technologies. In 1993, Motorola joined
Apple Computer and
IBM in designing a new RISC
architecture that would form the basis of the next generation of
personal computers. This effort culminated in the introduction of the
PowerPC architecture in 1994.
There are five main chips in the 680x0 family: the 6800, 68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060. Many people refer to them by their last three digits. For example, the "oh-forty" refers to the 68040 chip.
