Intel's First Chips - Chips that Changed the World - The 4004, 8008, 8080, 3101 & 1702

About this Artwork: This artwork displays some of Intel's most important first computer chips: the 4004 4-bit microprocessor, the 8008 8-bit microprocessor, the 8080 8-bit microprocessor, the 3101 64-bit solid-state memory chip, and the 1702 2K EPROM. Intel has had many firsts since its beginnings in 1968. However, these five early chips have captured the imaginations of many chip collectors. In the display, each of the images of the chips is proportionate to the others. The magnification factor is about 550 times. It is difficult to understand the importance of these chips in today’s world of billions of instruction cycles and bytes of memory. It’s difficult to think of a world where 64 bits of memory was a big deal. With USB memory sticks being almost disposable, an Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory chip seems like no big deal. It is hard to believe that Intel was a memory company for its first 10 years; microprocessors were an afterthought. It’s hard to imagine engineers needin