Various links regarding the Intel iAPX 432 32-bit Micromainframe processor family.

Much criticism of the 432 is misdirected since it overlooks the historical context and sheer ambitiousness of the project. Mistakes were made, but the question that needs to be considered is whether the mistakes were any more serious than those that plagued other CPU designs, and could have been resolved if the project had continued to be supported.

Given the failure of modern computing environments to provide adequate security, and that this was a primary objective of the Intel 432 over 30 years ago, was it just ahead of its time? Compare the architectural features of the Intel 432 with modern day virtual machines like CLR and JVM, many of the goals are the same, but the 432 predates the JVM by 15 years and CLR by 20 years.