A History of Early Microcontrollers, Part 1: Calculator Chips Came First (2022)

eejournal.com

105 points

teuobk

3 months ago


18 comments

colinprince 3 months ago
  • uticus 3 months ago

    very nice.

    > As the number of components in circuits grew, the number of manufacturing steps also grew, and manufacturing error rates multiplied—a device with one thousand components, each of which a skilled worker could connect with 99.9% reliability, had a 63% chance of having at least one defective connection. The search for an end to this “tyranny of numbers” drove many research projects in the late 1950s, most of them funded by the various arms of the United States military, all of whom foresaw an unending appetite for ever-more-sophisticated electronics to control their weaponry and defense systems. The military-funded projects included “micro-modules” (individual components that would snap together like tinkertoys), “microcircuits” (wires and passive components etched onto a ceramic substrate into which active components, like transistors, could be connected), and “molecular electronics” (nanotechnology avant la lettre).[3]

    • userbinator 3 months ago

      “microcircuits” (wires and passive components etched onto a ceramic substrate into which active components, like transistors, could be connected)

      That eventually became a common construction technique for automotive electronics:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick-film_technology

klelatti 3 months ago
  • asdefghyk 3 months ago

    What happened to the comments about the above link? They were there a few hours ago ?

    • kens 3 months ago

      The comment is flagged and dead. You can see the comment tree if you go to your profile and turn on showed.

      • asdefghyk 3 months ago

        Thank you for your explanation. However I already had showdead set to yes in my profile settings. I think I have seen dead comments before, they where comments that where in very light text,just about impossible to read, with out a copy and paste to note pad or something. However nothing appears i nthis case.

  • jgalt212 3 months ago

    [flagged]

    • Brian_K_White 3 months ago

      Implication not substantiated by random insignificant observation. Bot?

    • klelatti 3 months ago

      From the HM guidelines

      > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.

      • jgalt212 3 months ago
        5 more

        It wasn't shallow, and I took the to read what someone else posted, and I'm reasonably sure it was AI Slop. So if it's AI Slop, is it really another person's work?

        • klelatti 3 months ago
          3 more

          I’m genuinely interested in why you think this particular post is ‘AI slop’.

          • gavindean90 3 months ago
            2 more

            Seems like it’s just because the author used the word delve which the use of has been linked to AI writing. Pretty flimsy evidence though, maybe the surgery really does like the word.

            • klelatti 3 months ago

              Thank you! I had no idea. By the way, the post definitely isn't AI—whether it's 'slop' is a matter of opinion, of course.

        • klelatti 3 months ago

          I see you’ve chosen not to reply to this question so FYI this article was not AI generated in any way.

    • asdefghyk 3 months ago

      Its possible to analyze documents or writings to determine if they written by the same person with a reasonable to good accuracy . Would be interesting to compare the suspect article against others by the same author. Unless Chat GPT has been told to write in the same style - not sure how that would work .....

    • firesteelrain 3 months ago

      not sure if its ChatGPT or not but the author uses "favourite" so I am going to assume it's more common in the UK or proper English country to be using the word.

userbinator 3 months ago

The very first computers also essentially started as programmable calculators.