History of Computers - Ted Hoff
Contents
Intro
Marcian "Ted" Hoff is known as the inventor of the microprocessor. He came to Intel in 1968, the year it was founded, and became one of its first workers. In 1980, he became an Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company, and is now the Vice President and Chief Technical Officer with Teklicon, Inc. [1]
Overview
Ted Hoff was assigned by Intel to build a new calculator for Busicom, a Japanese company, that was to be used by the general public and be easy and affordable. This calculator was to also have the new IC memories instead of the old transistor-based computer memories. Dr. Hoff went above and beyond the requirements of Busicom for their chip and he birthed the Intel 4004.[2] Instead of being just a part of a calculator, the Intel 4004 became a multi-purpose microprocessor, the first of its kind. [3]
Significance
The microprocessor is extremely important because it is used in almost every single computer today. This revolutionized the computer industry and allowed for people to start building computers smaller and smaller. Dr. Hoff made a huge step in computer science by creating the microprocessor.
References
Links
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/hoff.html
