Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Intel 4004 Microprocessor Turns 44

Posted by timothy on from the what's-a-couple-of-zeros-anyhow dept.

mcpublic writes: Today is the 44th anniversary of the Intel 4004, the pioneering 4-bit microprocessor that powered the first electronic taxi meters. According to the unaffiliated (and newly renamed) Intel 4004 45th Anniversary Project web site, they have just re-created the complete set of VLSI mask artwork for the 4004 using scalable vector graphics, and updated their Busicom 141-PF calculator replica aimed at collectors and hobbyists. Included is some interesting historical perspective: Back in the early 1970s, there was no electrical CAD software, design-rule checkers were people, and VLSI lithographic masks were hand-crafted on giant light tables by unsung "rubylith cutters."

4 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Commercially significant but 2nd fiddle to TTL by kyubre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was one of those kids who built up simple bread board computers using stock standard TTL parts. I learned more about digital machinery in reading about and figuring out how processors work by trying to create my own bits of programmable/sequence-able logic using the astonishingly complete range of commodity TTL parts that where cheaply available in the late 1970s and 1980s.

    The 4004 was an important inspiration, but TTL is what launched our pervasive digital age.

    Unlike the 4004, it blows my mind how much of the original TTL part library is STILL available.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
    1. Re:Commercially significant but 2nd fiddle to TTL by kyubre · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Similar story on this end. I learned all kinds of electronics as teenager and then went off, first working on Air Force Radar for a number of years and then transitioning to software engineering as a civilian. A couple of years ago, I got my highly coveted treasure trove of TTL parts trays from my dad. Started playing around again on the same old breadboards, discovered SparkFun, EBay, and rediscovered Jameco.

      Seems nobody personally knows much of anything about the 4004 anymore, but Don Lancaster's TTL cookbook is just as applicable today as it was 30 years ago.

      --
      Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
  2. Re:no electrical CAD software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1967

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    look at some of the stuff hanging on the walls. The problem is that the text references I have about what IBM was doing in the 1960s is on dead trees only.

  3. In early 1970s, there was no VLSI, not even LSI; by bsharma · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Back in the early 1970s, there was no electrical CAD software, design-rule checkers were people, and VLSI lithographic masks were hand-crafted on giant light tables by unsung "rubylith cutters." In early 1970s, there was no VLSI, not even LSI; It was MSI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...