Reverse engineers are racing against time to complete designs that are functionally equivalent to the Intel 80386 but do not infringe any of Intel’s copyrights, according to one hardware manufacturer impatiently awaiting deliveries of 80386s. If Intel delays long enough, he told Microbytes, it may not be the only player when the market is really huge. We know of several companies that are working on chips that act just like a 386 but aren’t. Intel may have gone too far this time in banking on an established market.
