14 DAY TRIAL // It certainly doesn't look like much, but that strange chip that is pictured right bellow this post is the world's first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004, that celebrates its 40th birthday today.
It all began back in 1969, when Japan's Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation asked Intel to create a batch of 12 chips for its Busicom 141-PF calculator.
Intel put some of its brightest minds on that assignment, that is engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stanley Mazor, and some time later they came up with the Intel 4004, a 4-bit, 16-pin microprocessor working at a full 740kHZ (that's actually less than 1MHz).
At that time, this was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor and was installed in what else than a simple (for today's standards that is) calculator.
We certainly came a long way from that first initial CPU in the 40 years that passed since then, but despite all the advancements in computing performance is the Intel 4004 that will always be known as the chip that forever changed our world.
