This is the Intel 8088. A beast with 29,000 transistors that could be clocked up 8MHz in its 1979 heyday, it was the second chip to use the x86 architecture, and the brains inside the original IBM PC.

We continue our 50th anniversary look at that most pivotal of years, 1968, with a story from David Pogue about something very small that plays a very BIG role in our lives: In many ways, 1968 is ...