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Intel 4004 Turns 30

Posted by michael on from the middle-aged dept.

fm6 writes: "Just the thing to remind an aging geek of his mortality: this week marks the 30th anniversary of the Intel 4004, the very first microprocessor. Another historical page here, and a column bemoaning the absence of dancing in the streets here. Trivia -- why 4004? Because it was the fourth component in a 4-bit chipset." You might want to read the interview with Ted Hoff from a few months ago, it's pretty informative about the origins of the 4004.

10 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Well, Happy 30th... by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it still in production anywhere and what's the current record for overclocking one of these babies?

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Hey! by 7608 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Unless you can port linux to this, why do we care? This is slashdot, we have standards!

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    Trapped in Time... Surrounded by Evil... Low on Gas.
  3. Re:Perspective by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Funny
    I was around back then. My father even tried to get me interested in hobby computing, as opposed to my high-voltage experiments with transistors, capacitors, resistors and other things which could explode and poke an eye out. Eventually I got access to a DEC PDP system while in Explorers (at Dow Chemical in Midland, MI, no less) and once I discovered big, huge, high current processors (all TTL logic *8^) you could fry an egg on, I've never looked back. (much like today's P4 and Athlon, hey Thanksgiving baking tip, toss a turkey in one of these machines and cook it in half the time!)

    Maybe some day, when I get tired of making small electronic curcuits explode, I'll get one of these and build an SAP (simple as posssible) computer out of one, just for jollies, assuming I still have eyes left.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  4. Re:how about a beow... by scorcherer · · Score: 3, Funny

    4004 Not found.

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    The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.

  5. Wait a minute ... by shaunak · · Score: 4, Funny

    "this week marks the 30th anniversary of the Intel 4004, the very first microprocessor. "

    What?
    I thought Microsoft made the first microprocessor after purchasing the idea from Al Gore.
    But, well, if they say so on Slashdot, it MUST be true.

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    -Shaunak.
  6. The good ol' days by micromoog · · Score: 4, Funny
    From Intel's site:

    The 8008 was twice as powerful as the 4004.

    If only naming conventions could make that much sense today . . .

  7. Re:Uh oh... by j7953 · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...pretty soon, it will start experiencing its midlife crisis.

    At Intel, they call it the Aging Microprocessor Depression.

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  8. Now waitaminute!!! by Darth+RadaR · · Score: 3, Funny

    Intel 4004 Turns 30
    from the middle-aged dept.

    I'm 33 and that ain't middle-aged. I take offence! :P

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    /*drunk.. fix later*/
  9. Forgive me, lord Taco by billcopc · · Score: 3, Funny

    But imagine a beowulf cl...

    Hey, seriously, wouldn't it be groovalicious to have a bunch of 4004's produced using today's .13 micron technology, making them a tiny fraction of their original size ? Throw down a hundred of them on a board and have it run a massively parallelized app of some sort at 25 cents per node.

    Why the hell not ?

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    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  10. Re:I've got three of them :) by GroovBird · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, in essence they were saying "640 byte should be enough for everyone" ?

    (Can you imagina a B... ?)

    Dave