Happy 50th, Intel 4004

Steve K

“The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs … The first public mention of 4004 was an advertisement in the 15 November 1971 edition of Electronic News.”  (Wikipedia)  My first PC a decade later was an IBM Brand with an 8088 CPU @ 4.77 MhZ, dual floppies, and a monochrome monitor with a Hercules Monochrome Graphics card that ran Flight Simulator (not yet Microsoft), and Lotus 1-2-3. $3,000 at Sears Business Center, and worth every penny.

 

shlomi laszlo

my XT had a 8 Mhz turbo button.

then it turned out that most games needed CGA.

so i ditched the hercules.

 

Steve K

shlomi laszlo said:

my XT had a 8 Mhz turbo button.

then it turned out that most games needed CGA.

so i ditched the hercules.

Yes, I recall a Turbo button on one of my long series of Intel chip PC's.  The Hercules was impressive only because it was the only way to play Flight Simulator at the time, and on my monochrome monitor at that..  I eventually got into some state of the art video cards, with my local PC builder playing games like Microsoft Motocross Madness when I showed up to pick up the machine.  I still get good video cards, but not the best, spending the bucks on the CPU, e.g. the 12 core/24 thread AMD most recently.

3drendero

Amazing development, but the last 10 years have been slow from Intel and they just increased prices without increasing performance for consumers or prosumers. Thankfully AMD stepped up and killed the quad core from 2011.

Steve K

3drendero said:

Amazing development, but the last 10 years have been slow from Intel and they just increased prices without increasing performance for consumers or prosumers. Thankfully AMD stepped up and killed the quad core from 2011.

Yup.  I just finished a book about the development team for the Android OS.  Written by an insider, it tells about a small team developing an OS for phones (originally cameras), up against the mighty iOS for Apple iPhones.  The latter was never going to be for license, but Android was from the start open source.  Eventually owned by Google, Android got the last laugh with 70+% of the smart phone market and 3 Billion total devices (including tablets, airline back of seat screens, etc.)   Yes, Google makes a fortune from Android since the "free" version is pretty limited.  But I smiled when the Android team got a kick from in flight airline announcements to "Please Turn Off Your Apple Phones And Your Samsung Galaxies"  (the latter, of course, is Android OS)  Gives some meaning to the great Netflix series about early PC development: "Halt And Catch Fire".

3drendero

Mobile phones, another Intel blunder. They sold their ARM division just before the Iphone came out and smartphones exploded. Even turned down Apple when they asked for a CPU for the IPhone.

Steve K

3drendero said:

... Even turned down Apple when they asked for a CPU for the IPhone.

I wonder if the Intel exec who made that decision originally worked for Decca Records in London, the guy who auditioned The Beatles and turned them down.