Celebrate Intel's 4004 Microprocessor Turning 49 Today (4004.com) 29
Tim McNerney is the project leader at 4004.com, a site commemorating Intel's original 4004 microprocessor. He's also long-time Slashdot reader mcpublic, and shares news of a new open source adapter — plus a great moment chip history:
Even though Intel debuted its groundbreaking 4004 on November 15th, 1971, 49 years ago today, in the pages of Electronics News, there is something about Intel's very first microprocessor that keeps inspiring engineers to pay tribute to this historic chip.
Turkish iPhone engineer, Erturk Kocalar, (now at Google) and the force behind 8bitforce.com, just added this 4-bit granddaddy to his open-source lineup of 8-bit "Retroshields." These elegant little adapters let you score your favorite, vintage microprocessor on eBay and actually play around with it without having to wire up a multi-chip memory and the peripherals needed to make your little "engine" jolly fun. An Arduino emulates the rest of the system for you in software and lets you program and poke at your relic via USB from the comfort of a modern laptop.
Before FPGAs and yes, even before electronic CAD, there was a tradition of emulating hardware using software. In fact, it is central to the 4004 Genesis story. Busicom, a Japanese maker of mechanical adding machines, had designed its own electronic calculator chip-set and eagerly approached the now-famous Silicon Valley chip-maker to manufacture it. Back in 1969 Intel was just a tiny startup hoping to obsolete core memory with commodity semiconductors, and they didn't have extra logic designers on-staff. But Intel did have a prescient counter-proposal: we'll build you a general purpose computer-on-a-chip and emulate your custom calculator architecture using a ROM-conserving byte-code interpreter. Busicom agreed, and Intel managed to hire Italian superstar Federico Faggin away from Fairchild to craft a novel, customer-programmable microprocessor, which later, in 1975, German mechanical taxi meter maker Argo Kienzle would go on to launch the world's first electronic taxi meter. Starting to see a pattern of progress in everyday automation?
For photos, schematics, mask artwork, code, graphical simulators, more history, and the findings of a dedicated team of "digital archeologists," visit 4004.com
Turkish iPhone engineer, Erturk Kocalar, (now at Google) and the force behind 8bitforce.com, just added this 4-bit granddaddy to his open-source lineup of 8-bit "Retroshields." These elegant little adapters let you score your favorite, vintage microprocessor on eBay and actually play around with it without having to wire up a multi-chip memory and the peripherals needed to make your little "engine" jolly fun. An Arduino emulates the rest of the system for you in software and lets you program and poke at your relic via USB from the comfort of a modern laptop.
Before FPGAs and yes, even before electronic CAD, there was a tradition of emulating hardware using software. In fact, it is central to the 4004 Genesis story. Busicom, a Japanese maker of mechanical adding machines, had designed its own electronic calculator chip-set and eagerly approached the now-famous Silicon Valley chip-maker to manufacture it. Back in 1969 Intel was just a tiny startup hoping to obsolete core memory with commodity semiconductors, and they didn't have extra logic designers on-staff. But Intel did have a prescient counter-proposal: we'll build you a general purpose computer-on-a-chip and emulate your custom calculator architecture using a ROM-conserving byte-code interpreter. Busicom agreed, and Intel managed to hire Italian superstar Federico Faggin away from Fairchild to craft a novel, customer-programmable microprocessor, which later, in 1975, German mechanical taxi meter maker Argo Kienzle would go on to launch the world's first electronic taxi meter. Starting to see a pattern of progress in everyday automation?
For photos, schematics, mask artwork, code, graphical simulators, more history, and the findings of a dedicated team of "digital archeologists," visit 4004.com
49 already? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still cleaning up from the 48th year celebration. What a party that was.
Better celebrate 49 (Score:5, Interesting)
Who knows if Intel will be around for 50.
It's fabs are struggling.
NVIDIA is putting force behind ARM.
Intel just sold it's NAND business.
AMD just slapped Intel's 10th Gen well and truly with its new Zen3 architecture.
Apple abandoned Intel CPUs.
Intel's current best hope is to ensure business users and OEMs don't start offering more cheaper and higher performing alternatives.
Re:Better celebrate 49 (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't matter. The 4004 will always be with us in our hearts and minds.
Re:Better celebrate 49 (Score:4, Funny)
> The 4004 will always be with us in our hearts and minds.
Why would you use 4004 in pacemakers and brain implants? I think more energy efficient solution is better, like Cylone II.
Re: (Score:2)
If Intel wants to go another 40 years, they must first recognize that they are all out of laurels to rest on. Nobody cares about Intel Inside anymore, they need to have the numbers.
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Who knows if Intel will be around for 50.
It's fabs are struggling.
NVIDIA is putting force behind ARM.
Intel just sold it's NAND business.
AMD just slapped Intel's 10th Gen well and truly with its new Zen3 architecture.
Apple abandoned Intel CPUs.
Intel's current best hope is to ensure business users and OEMs don't start offering more cheaper and higher performing alternatives.
And they own a huge patent portfolio on nearly every aspect of modern CPU design and fabrication, a lot of which they actually invented. They'll be OK.
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Dear god man get your hyperbole sensor calibrated or the internet will destroy you.
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I'm going to say it's a pretty safe bet that Intel will be around in a year. That's a short enough time span that even if they didn't release anything new in the next year, inertia alone would let them coast to 50.
Now whether they are still around in another 49 years is another matter entirely.
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Indeed, it's called hyperbole, a comment exaugurated and not meant to be taken literally.
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Happy Birthday 4040! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Byte predated Kilobaud.
Kilobaud was used instead of "Kilobyte" when Byte beat them to the punch.
hawk
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Byte predated Kilobaud.
Kilobaud was used instead of "Kilobyte" when Byte beat them to the punch.
hawk
Right, thanks.
Beware the myth of the lone genius inventor (Score:2)
but will it play.... (Score:2)
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8-bits: Back when computers were still 'fun'. (Score:3)
I have a sweet spot for 8-bit microprocessors, because I think they were man’s best friend: simple to understand, easy to build upon, but reliable and capable to help us achieve a lot.
Agreed. I remember having much more fun with the CDP1802, 8080, and then Z80A/Z80B computers I built and owned back in the day, on perfboard, IMSAI, and Morrow Designs hardware, running CP/M and writing code in classic C and asembly language. I owe much of the technical abilities I use to make a living now to those humble foundations.
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I cut my teeth on the 6809: an 8-bit CPU that had 16 bit capabilities. Its relative addressing modes were fantastic, which is part of why it was soooo much more efficient than Intel's CPU's at the time.
Using OS9 Level 2, I could run my BBS, work on my software (OS9 Level 2's subroutine system was way ahead of its time), and do any number of other things with its 1 Mhz (I forgot exactly, but it was somewhere around there) at a time when the IBM PC could barely do half of those things with 10 Mhz.
When I had t
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The CDP1802 was an underrated and strikingly cool architecture.
Re: 8-bits: Back when computers were still 'fun'. (Score:2)
8008 was much better (Score:3)
4004 was not bad for a first try but the 8008 was a much better processor. I hand wired an 8008 computer complete with octal readout and input keyboard. (My future wife proved her intelligence by recognizing the octal keyboard as base8. Probably why I married her.)
Intel? What a laugh... (Score:3)
Architecturally speaking, Intel's chips have always been boring and ill-conceived except in the parts that were made really stupid. If it weren't for the AMD 64-bit extensions they'd still be a nightmare to program.The bottom line is that they designed the first microprocessor when they didn't know what they were doing and have continued down that path ever since. Their forte has always been dirty marketing tactics and process with technical chops coming a distant third. I'm happy that AMD is getting a chance to stomp them for a little bit. Maybe Intel will finally wake up and figure out they're in the technology business, not the manufacturing business. It's the only way they'll ever turn out a decent chip.