16 Oct
2007
16 Oct
'07
2:07 a.m.
I'm sure I saw a development system at DEC for the 4004 running on a PDP-8 circa
1975.
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf
Of Roy J. Tellason
Sent: 13 October 2007 19:41
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: 4004 and IC history / was Re: Vintage computer photogallery
On Saturday 13 October 2007 05:13, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Can't remember where I read it, but it seemed
plausible for the time
the
4004 was being developed (1970), also that it was compounded by
management's perceptions that the 4004 was a little business on the
side and not willing to invest much in it, memory chips still being the focus.
On the other hand, I wonder what packages the original Busicom designs
utilised - that Intel would otherwise have been obligated to produce -
one would expect, or typically, they would be larger. (The 4040 would
go to a larger package, of course.)
Having heard of the 4004 of course, I know basically nothing about it.
Except that it's the part that was supposed to have started all this... And
the 4040? I've only seen mention of it now and then.
(Snip)
Perhaps not speed as an issue but you were wired into
the small family
of chips that understood the highly specific machine/bus cycle, at
least until the 4008/9 came along that broke out the address/data busses.
4008/9? First I've heard of these at all.
Can you give any sort of a general overview of what those parts were all about?
I remember very little about the 8008, it having appeared in that Radio-Electronics
article way back when.
I do remember, even after the 8080 article in Popular Electronics came out, not thinking
very much of microprocessors for quite a while. They seemed limited, it appeared that
you had to really go through a lot to fit your thinking and way of doing things to what
they could handle, and it took me quite a while before I got to the point where I got a
really good grip on the tradeoffs involved, like low package count, etc. :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life
in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert
A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
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