Intel's 4004 Microprocessor Turns 40 126
harrymcc writes "On November 15th 1971, Intel introduced the 4004 — the first single-chip microprocessor. Its offspring, needless to say, went on to change the world. But first, Intel tried using the 4004 in a bunch of products that were interesting but often unsuccessful — like a pinball machine, an electronic vote-counting machine, and Wang's first word processor. Technologizer's Benj Edwards is celebrating the anniversary with an illustrated look back at this landmark chip." Here's another nostalgic look back at V3.co.uk, and one at The Inquirer. And an anonymous reader points out another at ExtremeTech, from which comes this snippet: "Designed by the fantastically-forenamed Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor, the 4004 was a 4-bit, 16-pin microprocessor that operated at a mighty 740KHz — and at roughly eight clock cycles per instruction cycle (fetch, decode, execute), that means the chip was capable of executing up to 92,600 instructions per second. We can’t find the original list price, but one source indicates that it cost around $5 to manufacture, or $26 in today’s money."
Re:Cue Kurzweil... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly 70 and doing everything I can to avoid a computer for my entire retirement?
You miss the Kurzweil reference, if medical progress keeps pace, 70 will be young.
I think the half-way mark 1991 makes an interesting reference point: in 1991, my desktop PC at work cost 2 months salary, it was a 16MHz 386 with a 640x480 resolution 15" color monitor. My desktop PC at work today cost about 3 days pay and is a 2+GHz i5 with two 1920x1080 24" flat panels.
Re:Interesting typo* (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not poorly worded. The history of AMD is poorly understood (by you, not them).
Re:Cue Kurzweil... (Score:4, Insightful)
If we've come this far in 40 years, where will we be in 40 more?
CMOS process shrinks will probably poop out around 2020. Intel claims to have things figured out until 8nm. When the CMOS process shrinks cease there will be no more massive numbers of "free" transistors every year. Intel and other will likely start playing with gallium arsenide and other stuff to try to squeeze more performance out of stagnated process sizes. Once those tricks are played out it could very well be the end until radical new alternative technology is developed.