Underdeveloped ARRL

[W3SLK]

Pete said:

My Intel chart shows 386/386SL in 1990, 486/486/SL in 1991, and Pentium in late 92/early 93, into the consumer mainstream.

I don't know the accuracy of your chart but I was working on desk top systems for NASA with 80386 processors in them in late 1987. When I got to my current employer in 1992, they were at the edge of the 80486 capability and in '93~'94 began phasing them out in favor of the Pentium. Hell, microprocessor technology was know as far back as 1972 but the metallurgy wasn't available, (again the military takes the lead).

Pete stated:

My first cellphone was in 96, so I missed the Radio Shack sale.

Heck I thought all hi tech people had one of those! Cripes I didn't meet a contractor that was without one of those little square jobbers with the rubber duck antenna!

Pete opined:

I'd like to hear your pitch to your management in today's time. When I left the corporate world several years ago, the "window of opportunity"  for getting a product from conception to "first ship" generally was 30 months or less. Case in point: look at the evolution of the digital cellphone over the last 3 to 4 years.

No argument here. Forget quality, get the product out on the shelves and start getting that return on the capital invested in research. Of course look what it got us. I can use the current Vioxx debacle as one example that is near and dear to my heart, (pun intended) But back in the 70's that was the amount of time. I'll give you a recent example: In 1988, I was returning from Atlanta on an Eastern Airlines Flight. Seated next to me was a biochemist who was telling me at that time the great discovery he had been working on the last five years known as "left-handed" sugar. Diabetics could eat it with out any effects on their blood sugar. Today we know it as Splenda which hit the markets about 2000.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Pete said:

My Intel chart shows 386/386SL in 1990, 486/486/SL in 1991, and Pentium in late 92/early 93, into the consumer mainstream.

I don't know the accuracy of your chart but I was working on desk top systems for NASA with 80386 processors in them in late 1987. When I got to my current employer in 1992, they were at the edge of the 80486 capability and in '93~'94 began phasing them out in favor of the Pentium. Hell, microprocessor technology was know as far back as 1972 but the metallurgy wasn't available, (again the military takes the lead).

Jan. 1969:
Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, asks Intel to build a custom-chip set for a new calculator. Ted Hoff suggests that instead of set of chips, they create a general-purpose programmable chip called the 4004 processor.

April 1969:
Computer Terminal Corporation visits Intel, asking them to integrate about 100 TTL components of their Datapoint 2200 terminal's 8-bit CPU into a few chips. Ted Hoff says they could put it all on one chip, so Intel and CTC sign a contract for it. (The resulting chip becomes Intel's 8008 processor.)

April 1971:
Intel renegotiates its contract with Busicom, gaining Intel the right to market the 4004 microprocessor openly in non-calculator applications. Intel returns US$60,000 to Busicom in exchange for product rights to the 4004 processor.

June 1971:
Texas Instruments runs an advertisement in Electronics magazine, showing a "CPU on a Chip" that it developed for Computer Terminal's Datapoint 2200 terminal. Gary Boone, of Texas Instruments, files a patent application relating to a single-chip computer

I think the military was out shooting or playing with their guns during this time. I can't find them on any chart.
I did a design of an experimental data set that used  "flat pack" processors at Bell Labs  during the summer of 71.

Pete opined:

I'd like to hear your pitch to your management in today's time. When I left the corporate world several years ago, the "window of opportunity"  for getting a product from conception to "first ship" generally was 30 months or less. Case in point: look at the evolution of the digital cellphone over the last 3 to 4 years.

No argument here. Forget quality, get the product out on the shelves and start getting that return on the capital invested in research. Of course look what it got us. I can use the current Vioxx debacle as one example that is near and dear to my heart, (pun intended) But back in the 70's that was the amount of time. I'll give you a recent example: In 1988, I was returning from Atlanta on an Eastern Airlines Flight. Seated next to me was a biochemist who was telling me at that time the great discovery he had been working on the last five years known as "left-handed" sugar. Diabetics could eat it with out any effects on their blood sugar. Today we know it as Splenda which hit the markets about 2000.

FDA approval always takes a long time to get things blessed.

[K1MVP]

Jan. 1969:
Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, asks Intel to build a custom-chip set for a new calculator. Ted Hoff suggests that instead of set of chips, they create a general-purpose programmable chip called the 4004 processor.

April 1969:
Computer Terminal Corporation visits Intel, asking them to integrate about 100 TTL components of their Datapoint 2200 terminal's 8-bit CPU into a few chips. Ted Hoff says they could put it all on one chip, so Intel and CTC sign a contract for it. (The resulting chip becomes Intel's 8008 processor.)

April 1971:
Intel renegotiates its contract with Busicom, gaining Intel the right to market the 4004 microprocessor openly in non-calculator applications. Intel returns US$60,000 to Busicom in exchange for product rights to the 4004 processor.

June 1971:
Texas Instruments runs an advertisement in Electronics magazine, showing a "CPU on a Chip" that it developed for Computer Terminal's Datapoint 2200 terminal. Gary Boone, of Texas Instruments, files a patent application relating to a single-chip computer

I think the military was out shooting or playing with their guns during this time. I can't find them on any chart.
I did a design of an experimental data set that used  "flat pack" processors at Bell Labs  during the summer of 71.

Pete,
Just a "note" to let you know how technology in industry was progressing.
When I was working for Hewlett Packard back in 1968 in Colorado,--they had just developed a new desktop calculator with a small CRT, back then before the days
of LED`s or LCD`s .
This calculator was "big",--approximately 2 ft x 2ft and abt 6 inches in height, but it
was the "cats meow" as far as new technology back then.

I wonder how many at the ARRL(bean counters) were even aware, of such a product at that time.
HP was and is still on the REAL "cutting edge" of technolgy,--QST was still publishing articles in 1968 about tube equipment, as I recall.
 
                                         73, K1MVP             
 

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Just a "note" to let you know how technology in industry was progressing.
When I was working for Hewlett Packard back in 1968 in Colorado,--they had just developed a new desktop calculator with a small CRT, back then before the days
of LED`s or LCD`s .
This calculator was "big",--approximately 2 ft x 2ft and abt 6 inches in height, but it
was the "cats meow" as far as new technology back then.

I wonder how many at the ARRL(bean counters) were even aware, of such a product at that time.
HP was and is still on the REAL "cutting edge" of technolgy,--QST was still publishing articles in 1968 about tube equipment, as I recall.
 
                                         73, K1MVP             
 

Was easy to find the info:
Microprocessor Articles:
QST August 1976, Meeting the Microprocessor, Part 1  (there were several Parts in later issues)
Ham Radio Mag, December 1975 Introduction to Microprocessors

(Don't have the CQ or 73 mag. indexes handy to see when they started)

Prior to 1976, QST also  had some articles on computer aided designs, computer aided calculations for different types of components, etc.

Early on, microprocessors and memory chips were not cheap devices and not readily available at your local electronic store.

[W3SLK]

Pete said:

Early on, microprocessors and memory chips were not cheap devices and not readily available at your local electronic store.

In the AN/UYK-20 which I was taught at DS "A" school in Vallejo, CA, they used what was called a microprocessor emulator. In essence it was four 4-bit ROMS that performed all CPU's micro instructions. This was done because they didn't have the means to make a 16-bit microprocessor although it was on the drawing board in 1972 when this computer was constructed for the military by then Sperry Univac (now Unisys). In its basic form upto 1984, it came with 64K of 4-wire traditional core memory, (hence no memory chips). In 1985 a retrofit was issued adding another 64K of core memory to the stack. It had a read time of ~ 42 micro seconds and write time of ~ 20. The reason it took so long is that core memory is non-volitile destructive read. Any read cycle had to re-write the information back to the stack. The only memory chips I can recall were in the RMU-605 AN/UYA-4 refresh memory unit which was built in the late 70's and utilized static ram for distribution of data and to make up for the slow processing speed of the mainframes, Sperry Univac 642-A/B's. All of this stuff was flat packs and dual-in-line chips and was technology of the early 70's.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

All of this presupposed the x386 line was cutting edge in the field of microprocessors. They weren't/aren't.