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.
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