BBC Radio 4 called this weekend hoping I would be willing to be interviewed in the middle of the night for their celebration of what they were calling “the 50th anniversary of the microchip,” which I came to understand meant the planar process that made possible the first integrated circuit.
But this is the 52nd anniversary. The BBC is running two years late.
I broke it to them gently.
If you are interested in those events of 52 years ago, here is a presentation all about it from the Computer History Museum back in 2009. This is a long video at 1:42 but be sure to look for Gordon Moore’s Powerpoint presentation, which runs about 20 minutes and is well worth viewing.
Just heard that slot on the Today programme. They claimed it was the 50th anniversary of the /patent/ of the microchip. They had Steve Furber and some other fella, I’m sure you would have been a more interesting ‘other fella’ 🙂
By what name do you do such chats? Just curious, is all. Where is the line between nom and pseudonym for those that live such a way?
No one in Hollywood uses their real name you know.
You should have said “1:42:31”, for a bit there I thought you were making a joke about short attention spans.
It’s too bad they don’t consult experts before they think up story ideas, but I guess that would be [insert snarky comment here]
Speaking of my own short attention span, when does the 20 min power point that Bob mentioned begin? Also, where is the reference to “1961” in the presentation?
I believe it starts at 40 minutes from the beginning.
Who set the clock in the photo to 4:20 ?
William Holden. Word has it he an Robert Mitchum used to go on epic pot benders.
That’s Peter Finch playing Howard Beale from Network. Don’t you folks watch old movies?
Heck no. We’re fed up with them. Can’t take ’em any more.
Yes, but William Holden was in that film as well!
Rupe
Thank you. Cringe made me cringe with that. I watch “Network” on my teevee machine with nontrivial frequency.
Never know what you’ll learn at Cringely.com!
Steve Furber would be an interesting guy to talk to, find out his take on how successful the ARM processor has become.
However. BBC Radio 4 is so far off everybody’s radar that being two years out of date wouldn’t make any difference!
Interesting that the last of Dr Gordon’s slides said “1961 – First planar integrated circuit”
\Greg
You have more useful info than the British had clnooeis pre-WWII.
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Minor nit: Jack Kilby did not develop the planar process. Jean Hoerni at Fairchild did, in 1959. Noyce independently invented junction isolation (Kurt Lehovec got the patent), then combined it with Hoerni’s process magic and Moore’s aluminum metallization to create the planar IC.
1959 is marked as Year 1 of Moore’s Law (using Hoerni’s planar transistor debut). 1961 is the year of the first 4-transistor IC (a flip-flop) reported in the literature, hence Moore’s reference to 1961 as the year of the first planar IC.
I stand corrected by everybody.
So today was the anniversary of the PATENT. A bit of a reach, don’t you think?
A reach perhaps, but IMO, a report on a patent approval anniversary is much preferable to another mindless preview of the latest royal wedding-of-the-sentry.
Back in the 60’s my father worked for a electronics R&D companies. He once gave me a tie clip that had a piece of one of the first “large scale integrated circuits” on it. He said it held several transistors.
So, it seems that The British Broadcasting Corporation attracts your attention. For the one that said they are off other people radar’s, it shouldn’t harm to learn from the BBC. They really have a LOT to teach.
And they do, no US channel or service of any kind will ever get a bit close to the BBC journalists and writers. Not even you Bob.
This series not only got close, but far exceeded: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanical_Universe
I loved that show! Went over my head, but I still loved it.
Very interesting history review. I especially enjoyed Gordon Moore’s comments. I also had to google Shockley Semiconductors to find out what all the laughter was about. Wikipedia gave insight. I probably would have passed his intelligence tests… Thanks for the post.
Really annoyed by this post. It might have been the middle of the night for you, but it was for our main breakfast programme over here – so what’s the problem? Do the programme, and state your case with regard to the anniversary. After all, do you want to reach a sizeable, reasonably intelligent audience, or do you just want to lounge in your pit? Besides, having been in Vegas for CES in Jan, and heard the dross that is US radio, the Today programme could teach you guys a lot about quality, advert-free journalism.
Why the anti-Brit tone of late, Bob? As far as I was aware, a British TV company was the original customer for “Triumph of the Nerds”.
Nevermind, I guess I should be happy to have been capable enough to figure out how to use this reply function – what with being British, and thus inherently “plodding and bound by bureaucracy”…
I had the extreme fortune for working for Jack Kilby when I was at TI. A quite, humble and unassuming man. He taught me what greatness was.
A brother from another planet:
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/attic2/attic2_015.html
[…] Cringely, I skipped ahead to Gordon Moore’s 20 minute […]
Has it really been 50 years already? that seems a little extreme to me.
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