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The Microchip That Changed the World Turns 50
In 1971, a small start-up launched the Intel 4004, the first general-purpose microprocessor. They had no idea it would be so big.
THE WORLD CHANGED forever on November 15, 1971. And hardly anyone noticed.
China had just been admitted to the United Nations, Apollo 15 astronauts had driven the first lunar rover on the Moon, Amtrak began intercity passenger services, Pink Floyd dropped their sixth studio album, Meddle, and Stanley Kubrick’s dystopian film, A Clockwork Orange, was released.
Yet on that same morning 50 years ago, a small start-up company in California known as Intel, barely three years old, put out a press release that signaled the dawn of the Digital Age. “Announcing a new era in integrated electronics” it said breathlessly, as press releases often do. And for once, it was an understatement.
The product launched was the Intel 4004, the first general-purpose ‘microprocessor’ — and the world’s first modern computer microchip. It was an innocuous sliver of silicon in a dark metal casing and fat metal electrodes for legs, looking all the world like a headless electronic cockroach. With 2,300 transistors, it could process what must have seemed like an astounding 60,000 instructions a second.
