INTERVIEW:
Question 1
Mr. Hoff can you summarise the development of the first microprocessor since 1971?
Answer
The work actually began in 1969 when Intel agreed to build some chips for a Japanese
calculator company. In the course of my work at Intel I had occasion to look at the design
for those chips and I felt it could be improved. One of the ways to improve it was to
replace the chip family with a single chip general purpose computer and memory to contain
programmes that would then programme that computer to perform the calculator functions.
That basically is how the first microprocessor started.
Question 2
From a technological point of view, how did the first processor differ from the previous
technology?
Answer
There were several differences between the microprocessor and the previous technology. At
that time I don't think anybody felt that the technology had reached a point where a
single chip processor could be produced on one chip. The feeling was that processors had
to be more complicated. So one way was to make a very simple processor. Another way was we
used a new type of memory that was being developed that actually reduced the transistor
count and improved the performance. So that was a new piece of technology that we had
available at Intel and that I don't believe many people knew about at that time.
Question 3
Do you remember the major problems that you had to face during the design of the
microprocessor?
Answer
The first major problem was to determine whether the microprocessor could perform the
functions needed for these calculators. I did some studies and that appeared to be quite
feasible with the instruction set and architecture that I had. Probably the bigger
problems, however, were to persuade our customers that this was a reasonable approach and
then later on to persuade the marketing department at Intel that it warranted offering
this type of product as a standard product available to the whole world.
Question 4
Some people think that your invention can be compared in importance to the invention of
printing by Gutenberg. What do you think about that?
Answer
That's somewhat of a difficult question to answer. We've had a lot more years of
experience with printing than we have with microprocessors. I would hope that
microprocessors are important, I think they are. But I would be hard put to compare it
with printing.
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