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A History of Early Microcontrollers, Part 1: Calculator Chips Came First (2022)

eejournal.com

105 points by teuobk a year ago · 18 comments

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colinprince a year ago

Also loved this:

https://technicshistory.com/2024/11/03/a-craving-for-calcula...

  • uticus a year ago

    very nice.

    > As the number of components in circuits grew, the number of manufacturing steps also grew, and manufacturing error rates multiplied—a device with one thousand components, each of which a skilled worker could connect with 99.9% reliability, had a 63% chance of having at least one defective connection. The search for an end to this “tyranny of numbers” drove many research projects in the late 1950s, most of them funded by the various arms of the United States military, all of whom foresaw an unending appetite for ever-more-sophisticated electronics to control their weaponry and defense systems. The military-funded projects included “micro-modules” (individual components that would snap together like tinkertoys), “microcircuits” (wires and passive components etched onto a ceramic substrate into which active components, like transistors, could be connected), and “molecular electronics” (nanotechnology avant la lettre).[3]

klelatti a year ago

May also be of interest on this topic:

https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/tiny-computers-from-tex...

  • asdefghyk a year ago

    What happened to the comments about the above link? They were there a few hours ago ?

    • kens a year ago

      The comment is flagged and dead. You can see the comment tree if you go to your profile and turn on showed.

      • asdefghyk a year ago

        Thank you for your explanation. However I already had showdead set to yes in my profile settings. I think I have seen dead comments before, they where comments that where in very light text,just about impossible to read, with out a copy and paste to note pad or something. However nothing appears i nthis case.

userbinator a year ago

The very first computers also essentially started as programmable calculators.

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