{"id":817,"date":"2011-11-15T10:44:41","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T15:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=817"},"modified":"2011-11-15T11:48:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T16:48:48","slug":"secret-lives-of-the-intel-4004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/817\/secret-lives-of-the-intel-4004","title":{"rendered":"Secret Lives of the Intel 4004 (40th Anniversary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/technologizer.com\/2011\/11\/15\/intel-4004\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/technologizer\/intel_4004_small.jpg\" alt=\"Intel 4004 40th Anniversay\" class=\"centered\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Forty years ago today, Intel <a href=\"http:\/\/technologizer.com\/2011\/11\/15\/intel-4004\/\" target=\"_blank\">announced the 4004<\/a>.  It was the first single-chip microprocessor in the world &#8212; an entire central processing unit (CPU) rendered as in integrated circuit on a single chip of silicon.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Electronic News<\/em>, an important trade newspaper for the emerging semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n<h3>It&#8217;s a Secret to Everybody<\/h3>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Those early 4004-bearing products are quite hard to find today, making them generally unknown to computer history.  That&#8217;s why I created a slideshow over at Technologizer that <a href=\"http:\/\/technologizer.com\/2011\/11\/15\/intel-4004\/\" target=\"_blank\">explores little-known applications of 4004<\/a>.  Some of the applications &#8212; like arcade games and electronic voting machines &#8212; might surprise you.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you enjoy it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forty years ago today, Intel announced the 4004. It was the first single-chip microprocessor in the world &#8212; 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,21,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-news-current-events","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}