The Motorola MC14500B 1 is a 1-bit processor introduced in 1976. While a 1-bit processor might seem almost useless, 2 it was marketed as... | Continue reading
I recently received a vintage IBM paperweight from the early 1970s that showcases some memory chips. 1 When IBM started using integrated ... | Continue reading
I recently received a vintage display box used by IBM to illustrate the progress of computer technology. This display case, created by IBM... | Continue reading
I recently received a vintage display box used by IBM to illustrate the progress of computer technology. This display case, created by IBM... | Continue reading
In 1969, high-density MOS integrated circuits were still new and logic circuits were constructed in a variety of ways. One technique was ... | Continue reading
In 1969, high-density MOS integrated circuits were still new and logic circuits were constructed in a variety of ways. One technique was ... | Continue reading
When I found out that the Computer History Museum has a working IBM 1401 computer [1] , I wondered if it could generate the Mandelbrot frac... | Continue reading
In 1969, Sharp introduced the first calculator built from high-density MOS chips, the QT-8D , followed by the handheld Sharp EL-8, the worl... | Continue reading
Texas Instruments introduced the first commercial single-chip computer in 1974, combining the CPU, RAM, ROM, and I/O into one chip. This f... | Continue reading
Back in the late 1970s, the most popular memory chip was Mostek's MK4116, holding a whopping (for the time) 16 kilobits. It provided stor... | Continue reading
The 8008 was Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, introduced in 1972. While primitive by today's standards, the 8008 is historically import... | Continue reading
The 8008 was Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, introduced in 1972. While primitive by today's standards, the 8008 is historically import... | Continue reading
In 1978, a memory chip stored just 16 kilobits of data. To make a 32-kilobit memory chip, Mostek came up with the idea of putting two 16K ... | Continue reading
Near the end of 1972, Intel introduced their first 8-bit microprocessor, the 8008. Decades later, this processor still influences computi... | Continue reading
I recently learned that cells are extremely crowded and busy places. I knew there's a lot of activity in cells, but I didn't realize just h... | Continue reading
A recent Twitter thread about a counterfeit analog multiplier chip attracted my attention since I'm interested in both counterfeit integr... | Continue reading
In 1974, Hewlett-Packard developed a microprocessor for control applications in their products, from floppy disk drives to voltmeters. Thi... | Continue reading
A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) can implement arbitrary digital logic, anything from a microprocessor to a video generator or crypt... | Continue reading
The total world's population of Haskell programmers fits in a 747. And if that goes down, nobody would even notice. -- Erik Meijer I rece... | Continue reading
The Nanoprocessor is a mostly-forgotten processor developed by Hewlett-Packard in 1974 1 as a microcontroller 2 for their products. Stra... | Continue reading
The Nanoprocessor is a mostly-forgotten processor developed by Hewlett-Packard in 1974 1 as a microcontroller 2 for their products. Stra... | Continue reading
When I found out that the Computer History Museum has a working IBM 1401 computer [1] , I wondered if it could generate the Mandelbrot frac... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 processor was introduced in 1978, setting the course of modern computing. While the x86 processor family has supported 64-b... | Continue reading
Intel introduced the 8086 processor in 1978, leading to the x86 architecture in use today. I'm currently reverse-engineering the circuitry... | Continue reading
One under-appreciated characteristic of early microprocessors is the difficulty of distributing power inside the integrated circuit. While... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop an... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 processor contains many interesting components that can be understood through reverse engineering. In this article, I'll di... | Continue reading
Introduced in 1978, the revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor led to the x86 processors used in most desktop and server computing today.... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop and... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month, 1 so I made some high-res die photos of the chip to celebrate. The ... | Continue reading
The revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month so I've been studying its die. 1 I came across two 8... | Continue reading
The Nintendo Game Boy contains an audio amplifier chip for sound through a speaker or headphones. In this post, I reverse-engineer this ch... | Continue reading
The Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month, 1 so I made some high-res die photos of the chip to celebrate. The ... | Continue reading
This article is translated into Vietnamese at: Bên trong chíp định thời 555 . If you've played around with electronic circuits, you prob... | Continue reading
Intel's groundbreaking 8008 microprocessor was first produced 45 years ago. 1 This chip, Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, is the ancesto... | Continue reading
Floating-point numbers are very useful for scientific programming, but early microprocessors only supported integers directly. 1 Although... | Continue reading
A recent post quotes Alan Kay's statement that expressing Lisp in itself is the " Maxwell's Equations of Software ": Yes, that was the bi... | Continue reading
Intel introduced the 8087 chip in 1980 to improve floating-point performance on the 8086 and 8088 processors, and it was used with the ori... | Continue reading
Remember the old video game Space Invaders? Some of its sound effects were provided by a chip called the 76477 Complex Sound Generation ch... | Continue reading
Remember the old video game Space Invaders? Some of its sound effects were provided by a chip called the 76477 Complex Sound Generation ch... | Continue reading
I saw an ad for a tiny chip 1 that provides 5 volts 2 of isolated power: You feed 5 volts in one side, and get 5 volts out the other si... | Continue reading
This article is now available in Vietnamese Bộ sạc iPhone của Apple . Disassembling Apple's diminutive inch-cube iPhone charger reveals ... | Continue reading
The Nintendo Game Boy Color is a handheld game console that was released in 1998. It uses an audio amplifier chip to drives the internal ... | Continue reading
You're probably familiar with modern processors made by Advanced Micro Devices. But AMD's processors go back to 1975, when AMD introduced t... | Continue reading
You're probably familiar with modern processors made by Advanced Micro Devices. But AMD's processors go back to 1975, when AMD introduced t... | Continue reading
http://habrahabr.ru/post/257387 This article is now available in Russian: Майним Bitcoin с помощью бумаги и ручки . A die photo of the int... | Continue reading
In the Apollo Moon missions, the Saturn V rocket was guided by an advanced onboard computer system built by IBM. This system was built fro... | Continue reading
In the Apollo Moon missions, the Saturn V rocket was guided by an advanced onboard computer system built by IBM. This system was built fro... | Continue reading