At first i was like "I'm pretty sure this is bullshit or some cheat used" but then i was like "Oh, its dimitry."
Impressive work, as always.
Impressive work, as always.
The first true (civilian) microprocessor was Intel 8008, in 1972.
Intel 8008 was a monolithic implementation, i.e. in a single PMOS integrated circuit, of the processor of Datapoint 2200, therefore it deserves the name "microprocessor".
The processor of Datapoint 2200 had an ugly architecture, but there is no doubt that it was a general-purpose CPU and traces of its ISA remain present in the latest Intel and AMD CPUs.
On the other hand, the set of chips that included Intel 4004 was not intended for the implementation of a general-purpose computer, but it was intended just for the implementation of a classic desktop calculator, not even a programmable desktop calculator.
This is the reason for the many quirks of Intel 4004, e.g. the lack of instructions for the logic operations, and many others that have increased the amount of work required for implementing a MIPS emulator suitable for running Linux.
Even if Intel 4004 was intended for a restricted application, after Intel has offered to sell it to anyone, there have been many who have succeeded to use it in various creative ways for implementing microcontrollers for the automation of diverse industrial processes, saving some money or some space over a TTL implementation.
In the early days of the electronics industry it was very normal to find ways to use integrated circuits for purposes very different from those for which the circuits had been designed. Such applications do not make Intel 4004 a true microcontroller or microprocessor. Very soon many other companies, and later also Intel, have begun to produce true microcontrollers, designed for this purpose, either 4-bit or 8-bit MCUs, then Intel 4004 has no longer been used for new designs.
Your statement about Intel 'pushing back' the date to 1971 also makes little sense given Intel advertised [1] the 4004 as a CPU in Electronic News in Nov 1971.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004#/media/File:Intel_4...
Therefore I do not believe that it is possible to consider Intel 4004 as a general-purpose processor. It had only the features strictly necessary for the implementation of the Busicom calculator.
The idea to sell 4004 for other uses has appeared long after the design was finished, when Busicom did not want to pay for the chipset as much as Intel desired, so Intel decided to try to sell the chipset to other customers too, and then they thought to advertise it as a "CPU".
Moreover, it is debatable whether Intel 4004 can be considered as a monolithic processor, because 4004 was not really usable without the rest of the chipset, which provided some of the functions that are normally considered to belong into a processor.
The Intel 4004 4-bit "CPU" implemented less functions than the 4-bit TTL ALU 74181, which was general-purpose and which was the main alternative at that time for implementing a CPU, but it had the advantage of including many registers, because the MOS registers were much cheaper in die area than the TTL registers, and these included registers were the reason why a CPU implemented with the Intel 4004 chipset had a lower integrated circuit count than the equivalent implementation with MSI TTL ICs.
Intel's advertisement of 4004 being a CPU was just an advertisement of the same kind of Tesla having a "Full Self-Driving".
So you're setting a range of instructions without which a device can't be considered a general-purpose computer even if the missing instructions can be recreated in software with instructions that do exist.
Sorry disagree with this completely, as does every definition I've ever seen.
The reason that the 4004 is considered a CPU and the 74181 is not a CPU is that the 4004 contains the control logic, while the 74181 is only the ALU.
Of course, "microprocessor" and "CPU" are social constructs, not objective definitions. (For instance, bit-slice processors like the Am2901 were considered microprocessors in Russia.) So you can craft your own definition if you want to declare a particular processor first. cough MP944 cough
PS: love the VFD
Intel's real innovation—the thing that made the microprocessor important—was creating the microprocessor as a product category. Selling a low-cost general-purpose processor chip to anyone who wanted it is what created the modern computer industry. By this perspective, too, the 4004 was the first microprocessor, creating the category.
My article in IEEE Spectrum on this subject goes into much more detail: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-...
Bit of course you can solve this by sending letters speculatively, and having Dave keep copies of his letters back to you so he reference them for recently set values, that way you can at least keep Dave busy while the letters are in flight.