Getting back to the 8088's system bus, the bus uses a four-step sequence of operations to access memory or I/O devices. These steps are called T-states: T1, T2, T3, and T4. A read operation provides the address during T1 and receives the data during T3. 6/8
A complicated state machine moves the processor through the T-states. This diagram shows the location of the bus state machine circuitry on the die of the 8088 processor. Back in 1979, just a few flip-flops and logic gates occupied a substantial area on the die. 7/8