Launched in 1982, Intel's 80186 - or sometimes iAPX 186 - was an evolution of the company's earlier 16-bit 8086, with a 20-bit address bus supporting up to 1MB of memory.

However, because it included many of the functions that previously relied on external support chips, it was incompatible with the wider IBM PC market, meaning that IBM ignored it in favour of the later 80286.

Nevertheless, its on-board direct memory access did make it easier to build multi-user systems around it - especially when these hosted multiple CPUs - and so it did appear in several higher-end "server" micros, including Hotel Microsystems' Minstrel 4 and Bromcom's Hyper Micro.