HP Forum Archive 16

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Slightly OT, but I Think You'll Enjoy Message #1 Posted by Les Bell on 15 Nov 2006, 12:53 a.m. Since it is the 35th anniversary of the 4004 microprocessor, Intel has released the schematics of that chip, as well as a simulator written in Java. Details are available at the unofficial 4004 web site: http://www.4004.com/. Apparently the Intel Museum [http://www.intel.com/museum/] is also going to feature a giant reproduction of the Busicom 141-PF calculator, which was the product the chip was designed for. Really fascinating stuff. . .

Re: Slightly OT, but I Think You'll Enjoy Message #2 Posted by Bram on 15 Nov 2006, 5:12 a.m., in response to message #1 by Les Bell have a look into another museum.

Re: Slightly OT, but I Think You'll Enjoy Message #3 Posted by Paul Brogger on 16 Nov 2006, 5:05 p.m., in response to message #1 by Les Bell When I started working at the Washington Library Network, the previous-generation terminal was a monstrously-heavy Omron (I think) with an integral 300-baud acoustic coupler. The thing had the expanded character set (including diacritics and special charactes used in Library Automation) and a 24 x 80 monochrome screen. Internally, it had a narrow backplane and maybe a couple dozen small (~ 4" x 5") circuit boards. I recognized the 4004 and 256-bit memory packages in there -- already obsolete during that 8080 / Z80 / 6502 etc. period. Being the previous-generation terminal, we were encouraged to take them home so we could intervene in off-hours trouble calls and monitor all-night database reorganizations. Ahhh, the good old days . . .

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