Fifty years ago, on 15 November 1971, a prophetic advertisement in Electronic News appeared to announce “a new era of integrated electronics.” The debut of Intel’s 4004 ushered in the revolution of the general-purpose programmable processor, and, by extension, the modern computer age.
Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce didn’t found Intel in 1968 to design microprocessors. Instead, their focus was firmly on memories. In October 1970, Intel introduced the 1103 DRAM, which laid the foundation for becoming the world’s largest memory company later in the decade. While the startup waited for the memory business to take off, however, it needed all the business it could get.
And so, in 1969, Intel accepted a contract from the Japanese manufacturer Business Computer Corporation to manufacture the chips for its 141-PF calculator. Busicom had come up with a fixed-purpose design requiring twelve ICs, three of which were special-purpose processing units. The Japanese company wanted Intel to design and manufacture these chips.
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