We take for granted how fast our computers and technology work today. Microprocessors (‘chips’) have speeded up not just our office and home computers but the world of the Internet too.
They represent a huge achievement in modern engineering and one company stands out: Intel, who developed the first microprocessor for calculators.
In 1969, Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation asked Intel to design 12 custom chips for its new Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. Intel suggested a family of just four chips, including one that could be used in a variety of products. The four chips were known as the MCS-4: it included a central processing unit chip – the 4004 – as well as supporting a read-only memory chip for the custom applications program, a random-access memory chip for processing data and a shift-register chip for the input/output port.
In 1971, Intel purchased the rights to their microprocessor back from Nippon and launched the Intel 4004 processor and its chipset. The advertisement placed in Electronic News on November 15, 1971, announced ‘A New Era in Integrated Electronics’. The Intel 4004 processor became the first general-purpose programmable processor on the market. Engineers could use it as a ‘building block’ to customize their own software, allowing it to perform different functions in a wide variety of electronic devices.
Of its time, the Intel 4004 microprocessor was one of the smallest designs ever commercially produced. To illustrate its power, think about this: the 4004 was the size of a little fingernail, but it could deliver the same computing power as the first electronic computer built in 1946 and that computer occupied an entire room!
Contribution to Retail History
Electronic and computing equipment with the ‘Intel Inside®’ logo (the famous ‘mark’ that tells us of the presence of an Intel chip within the device) are used to power the retail supply chain, from end to end. Stock control, distribution, display boards, accounting, online shopping – the entire modern e-commerce process is reliant on microprocessors like these.