Corrections to trivia

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Tue Oct 6 10:30:35 1998

< > Babbage was not the first to come up with the idea of a computer, but
< > can trace the development of modern computers back to him. You can't
< > anything like that with Holt's chip -- it had no influence. Maybe the
< > were other Big Bangs before The Big Bang, but if they didn't create a
< > Universe, nobody cares.

Prior to Holts chip, the F14 CADC there wer lesser chips. All of them
were on a line started in the late 50s with a simple IC of no real
usefulness. The little bangs were the devlopment of processes that alloed
more transistors to a die, developing MOSFET technology that were more
compact and better suited to planar circuits on the die. Things like
well isolation all contributed and happend on lesser circuits than a CPU.
We are talking about commonly used chips like gates, adders, shift
registers, rams and ROMS.

Lets face it, the 8008 would have been a burp instead of a bang if the
ROM and RAM chips weren't there too!

< I think this attitude in general carelessly disregards an amazing body o
< work. In fact, I think people do care. I'm not so quick to sweep

My whole point.


< historical facts underneath the carpet simply as a matter of convenience
< I'd rather know the complete and true story, and not just the easiest on
< to remember.
<
< Furthermore, you are are discounting the AMI microprocessors of the
< early 70s, which Holt went on to design after the F14 CADC, and the
< influence those chips may have had on later designs.
Received on Tue Oct 06 1998 - 10:30:35 BST