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Intel 4004 Turns 30
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.
Is it still in production anywhere and what's the current record for overclocking one of these babies?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"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.
-Shaunak.
Perhaps no overclocking and Linux, but -vice versa- there exists a 4004 software emulator for Linux (e.g., i4004em).
The 4004 was certainly a significant milestone, but I think the 8080 launched in 1974 was truly the "Model T" of the computer industry. That was the chip that was general enough to really run everything. It was the basis for all the microcomputers and the CP/M operating system.
In fact, I believe Zilog Z80s (an 8080 clone with some extra instructions -- around 1977?) are still being manufactured as controllers in various products.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The 8008 was twice as powerful as the 4004.
If only naming conventions could make that much sense today . . .
I remember stopping by the Intel booth at the National Computer
Convention in New York in 1971-1973 timeframe (can't remember exact
date).
My Dad had put me on a train to New York to expand my teenage
horizons. I returned with 4004 and 8008 data sheets and some chip
samples. I spent the next few months dreaming up what I was going to
do with the chips and drawing schematics.
I never did build anything with them, because owning a terminal and a
modem was more important to me at that time than a having a uP - if I
had had my priorities straight, I might be famous now [grin]. I did end up
designing and building 3 different video terminals, though.
Thanks for the memories.
-Rick
about the 4004 development, right here - they were Intel's customer at the time.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It is lesser known because the designer, Ray Holt, only received clearance to publish information about it in 1998.
Still utterly unused, in anti-static foam, three Intel 4004s. My roommate decided to start collecting old CPUs, and I managed to find these, free. I still want to make a very simple blinking-lights toy with one of these, and proudly put the "Intel Inside" sticker on the box :)
:)
Goddess, this brings back memories! Hanging out at the library, using their terminal to call (at 300 baud, that was *fast!*) the HP-2000 system at Harper College, and chatting with friends who had serious money (Jeff actually *built* an Imsai 8080 unit, though he got many of the parts free by schmoozing the sales person).
30 years, gads. Back then, having even a floppy disk was a wild dream, now we have 100+ gigabyte hard disks. Back then, having one whole K of ram was heaven - last week, I bought 512 meg for $20. Back then, the clock oscillator could be made from a simple L-C circuit, and it ran several hundred kilohertz. Now, it's a PLL-controlled internal oscillator, using an external crystal oscillator, all running at frequencies that make a microwave oven look slow.
All this, in thirty years. That *really* makes me feel old
Lemon curry?
Anyway, a conveyor belt dropped bottles from a wheel going around (a horizontal disc) onto straight rows of pins, also moving. Required some trigonometry and timing, especially when starting the machines up. It was controlled by a 4004, the code lived in 7 256-byte uv eprom dip chips.
We had an assembler written in Fortran, it ran on either a Honeywell 1648 or a Dec PDP-10 (both notable machines in ARPANET/Internet history). When I got there, they used to type the hex assembler output into the prom burner by hand! Burning the 7 proms took 18 hours of person time, and was error-prone. I wrote some code to do the eprom download automatically, with a paper tape or something, cut the process down to an hour and a half, made some folks pretty happy.