Slashdot Mirror

In terms of the first microprocessor you should check out Pico Electronics Ltd, they work working with Sinclair and Monroe and had produced a single chip processor for calculators that was for sale in early 1971.

http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/microprocessor_history.htm

The also created the X10 signaling over powerline for home automation and morphed into the eponymous company that had its short burst of infamy with its pop up advertising, before later declaring bankruptcy!

Yea, but nothing beats watching a Monroe-matic CSA 10 calculate the decimal remainder of a division!

When I started, pre-computer, the accounts department had rows of incredibly noisy mechanical 'Marchant' multiplying machines, each on a resonant all-steel desk. The production department kindly sent up inch-thick felt pads, and the racket subsided. Then came re-equipment with the precious 'electronic' machines (Anita*) with a line of hot number-valves ('tubes') along the top. But accountants are traditionalists, so the felt pads loyally stayed on, as a kind of sympathetic magic for quiet calculation. Ventilation was supposed to come from below, but of course it never came through thick felt. Thus the Anitas were extra popular - because if you put your meat pies on the generous top during the morning tea-break, they'd be hot for everyone by lunchtime. * http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/photo_anita_C_VIII. htm

Looks like a collision between "Monroe" (not this one) and "Cerom"...

an overgrown calculator chip

You misspelled "single-chip processor for Datapoint". Yes, that article says that Seiko used the 8008 for "a sophisticated scientific calculator", but that's not what it was designed for. The 4004 was designed for use in a calculator.

God rest his soul, for without him, Slashdot would not be!

First, I mean no disrespect to Kilby -- he clearly was an innovator of the first order and an accomplished inventor. But to say that without him, slashdot would not have happened is to misread the broad sweep of history in general and the history of chips in particular. So many great ideas bubble out of the context of the time, not the minds of some unique person. Eras are primed for particular inventions. Even the IC was essentially invented by two independent inventors-- don't forget Robert Noyce who also "invented" the chip. Kilby's chip may have come a few months earlier, but Noyce's chip was on silicon.

At worst, without Kilby, the IC would have been delayed half a year and all of us with have slightly lower post-counts.

That'd be great... if this was the equivalent of an 8008. Which it's not.

It's the equivalent of a Magic Brain Calculator. A nice toy, but utterly useless to getting to full-blown electronic computers.

This was a *stunt*!! You don't seem to understand that this technology is almost totally useless for getting to orbit. It's not scalable. What it really is is a proof-of-concept of building a rocket by a private individual. But it's not space travel.

I want them to succeed. Supposedly they're working on real space vehicles, and more power to them.