Forty years ago today, Intel announced the 4004. It was the first single-chip microprocessor in the world — an entire central processing unit (CPU) rendered as in integrated circuit on a single chip of silicon.

Up to that point CPUs were typically constructed of many ICs and discrete components soldered onto multiple circuit boards that, when combined, would have trouble fitting in a cigar box. The 4004 compressed similar functionality into a silicon chip 1/8 inch wide by 1/6 inch long.

The story of the 4004 began in in 1970, when Japanese manufacturer Busicom commissioned Intel to help create a chipset for a desktop calculator. Intel rejected the initial Busicom-designed chipset and countered with its own simplified design, which included the 4004 and three other supporting chips. Those chips, when used together, could form the heart of a complete microcomputer.

While the 4004 first appeared in the Busicom 141-PF calculator (seen above) during mid-1971, a contract renegotiation later in the year left Intel free to sell the microprocessor and its supporting chipset to others. It announced the 4004 to the general market using a carefully placed advertisement in the November 15, 1971 issue of Electronic News, an important trade newspaper for the emerging semiconductor industry.

It’s a Secret to Everybody

Once available to the general market, the Intel 4004 appeared in only a handful of 1970s commercial products before more powerful microprocessors, like the 8008, made the 4-bit CPU thoroughly obsolete.

Those early 4004-bearing products are quite hard to find today, making them generally unknown to computer history. That’s why I created a slideshow over at Technologizer that explores little-known applications of 4004. Some of the applications — like arcade games and electronic voting machines — might surprise you.

I hope you enjoy it.

Dungeon Master: Theron’s Quest – The video game for brutal dictators.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever dressed as a video game character for Halloween? Tell us about it.

Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod to the world. Many people didn’t know what to think. It would take a little time for idea of the iPod to sink in, so to speak, but once it did, it did so in a very big way.

I first encountered the iPod shortly after its 2001 launch at a local Circuit City. Its simple white scroll wheel stared at me from across the room like a giant eye that had just opened for the first time. Yep, it got my attention. A ring-shaped kiosk in the middle of the room held iPods projected upwards, each player perched on a security rod, restricted, but available for public tinkering.

I walked up to it and touched it, ran my fingers across the front and spun the wheel. It was almost insultingly intuitive to a gadget freak like myself. It worked, and it was obvious that everyone would know how to use it almost immediately after picking it up.

Before playing with the iPod, I was skeptical of the device — like just about everyone else. But after touching it, I knew that the future of music consumption wore an Apple logo. By God, I wanted one. Bad.

Three Articles about iPod

So here we are, ten years later. The iPod unquestionably shook up the world. How should we mark the anniversary? Well, to start, I have written three pieces about the iPod for this exact occasion. I’ll go through them below.

1. The Birth of the iPod – In this piece over at Macworld, I take a look at the origins of the first iPod — how it was created, by whom, and why. I owe great thanks to Tony Fadell for sharing his time to talk about the iPod’s creation, and to Steven Levy and Leander Kaheney, whose previous works on the iPod also provided invaluable sources for my article.

   Despite those sources, this is not some iPod creation rehash. In fact, it puts together a number of disparate information sources for the first time. And thanks to my interview with Fadell, you’ll definitely learn some new tidbits about the birth of the iPod.

2. iPod Oddities – In which I continue my long-running Technologizer-hosted Oddities series by examining weird accessories, art, and history related to the iPod. Fun stuff, as always. Don’t miss the iPod ballistics calculator.
3. The iPod as an Iconic Cultural Force – Also at Macworld, this piece openly muses about how the iPod changed our culture, the music industry, and the world around us.

I wish I could say that I wrote more (ha), but you’ll have to be satisfied with that — oh, and all the other iPod tributes you’ll find on the web in the next few days.

Happy birthday, iPod.

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Discussion Topic of the Anniversary: What did you think about the iPod when you first heard about it? Did your opinion change after you actually used it?

In Memoriam: Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011)
Developer of the C programming language, co-creator of UNIX

Few individuals have been as influential in the field of computers as Dennis Ritchie. Programmers have used his language, C, to author much of the world’s best software. UNIX, an operating system Ritchie first co-developed in 1969, led the way for all modern interactive operating systems, including MS-DOS, Linux, and Mac OS X. UNIX still forms the conceptual and technological basis of most server operating systems in use today. Ritchie will be richly missed.

The iBook: a minimalist scan in honor of Steve Jobs.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What did you think of the original iMac when you first saw it?

In Memoriam: Steve Jobs (1955-2011), co-founder and ex-CEO of Apple, Inc.

The Full Coverage page of Yahoo News on 9/11/2001 at 2:03 PM EDT.

A special terrorism page of Yahoo news on 9/11/2001 at 2:03 PM EDT.

I took these screenshots of the Yahoo News website ten years ago today — on the afternoon of September 11th, 2001. I had recently driven home from the campus of NC State University, which I attended at the time, and checked online for more details about the attacks.

The headlines seen here, with their blunt assessment of the dramatic and unprecedented events that unfolded earlier that morning, were very hard to mentally grasp. I felt like I was witnessing a scene from a Hollywood disaster movie made horribly real.

That’s why I took these screenshots. I thought I’d never believe myself, in recounting the events of that day, if I didn’t grab some evidence of what it was like to witness it at the time. I’m glad I did. I also filled four VHS tapes with TV news coverage of the event so I could show my future children what it was like. I’m not sure I will be able to summon the courage to watch them for quite some time.

“Safety is a pilot’s first and foremost concern.”

The most defining cultural, political, and national moment of my generation happened ten years ago next Sunday. You know what it is. The pain from that day is still fresh enough in my mind that I barely want to talk about it.

I recently ran across this advertisement for Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 in a 1995 issue of ComputerLife magazine. It gave me chills when I first saw it — as almost anything involving airplanes and the World Trade Center does for most Americans. The ad encourages the reader to fly safely when navigating close to the Twin Towers.

The fact that Microsoft designed an ad like this means nothing, of course — I’m not implying any kind of supernatural foresight embedded into a 1995 computer game advertisement. It’s just creepy in retrospect. The World Trade Center’s stature as one of the world’s tallest and most famous landmark buildings inevitably teased human minds to make dramatic juxtapositions like this — sometimes harmlessly, and sometimes — one time — with devastating results.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Where were you when you first heard about the September 11th, 2001 attacks? Did they change your computer or video game habits in any way?

As a commercial game download service, Good Old Games (GOG) has been bringing classic PC titles back to life for a few years now. Just today, GOG announced that the IBM PC version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is now available as a free download over at their site.

Ultima IV has been available on the ‘Net as an authorized free download off and on over the years, but it’s always nice to have a trustworthy place to get it.

While you’re over at GOG, check out the site’s other offerings. I personally love GOG because they distribute original, full games without DRM. That is very important.

When printing this sticker, Apple refused to stay within the lines.

Apple included corporate logo stickers like this with just about every computer sold by the company from the Apple II era (late 1970s) up to at least the iMac G4 (2002) — the last time I noticed one. This particular sticker came packaged with a 1983 Apple IIe.

The stickers changed over time, of course. At first, the font switched from Motter Tektura (seen here) to Apple Garamond in the mid-1980s. The last Apple sticker I own, from 2002, simply consists of a solid white Apple logo, no text.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Steve Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO last Wednesday. What do you think will happen to Apple without him?