23 Sep
1998
23 Sep
'98
7:03 a.m.
On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Doug Yowza wrote:
In fact, Holt's design IS a central processing unit on a single chip. The
article, unfortunately, left out a great amount of detail. The journalist
spent two months working on an article that did little to explain the
complexity of the issue.
Ray's talk this Saturday will clear a lot of questions up. Hoff and
Faggin are too biased to be the authorities on what constitutes a
"microprocessor", especially since many other industry veterans disagree
with their opinions.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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On page
B6, in an article titled "Yet Another 'Father' Of the
Microprocessor Wants Recognition", there is discussion of Ray Holt, an
ex-Navy engineer who claims to have created the microprocessor in 1969, two
years before Hoff, Faggin, and Mazor created the integrated processor.
I finally read the article today. It's interesting that Hoff et al define
a microprocessor just as I do:
"But we were the first to put a computer's central processing unit on a
single chip."
The article goes on to say that Mr. Holt argues that a microprocessor
doesn't have to be on one chip, but I didn't see any attempt to offer an
alternative definition of microprocessor.