A History of Early Microcontrollers, Part 1: Calculator Chips Came First (2022)
15 comments
·January 4, 2025colinprince
uticus
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
“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:
klelatti
May also be of interest on this topic:
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/tiny-computers-from-tex...
asdefghyk
What happened to the comments about the above link? They were there a few hours ago ?
kens
The comment is flagged and dead. You can see the comment tree if you go to your profile and turn on showed.
jgalt212
[flagged]
Brian_K_White
Implication not substantiated by random insignificant observation. Bot?
klelatti
From the HM guidelines
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.
jgalt212
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?
asdefghyk
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
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
The very first computers also essentially started as programmable calculators.
Also loved this:
https://technicshistory.com/2024/11/03/a-craving-for-calcula...