History Is....

According to Ambrose Bierce, history is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

Okay, but that doesn't mean that the recently released video The Microprocessor Chronicles isn't worth watching. The four-hour documentary, which chronicles the history of microprocessors in general and Intel CPUs in particular, was co-produced by Stanford University Libraries, Walker Research Associates, and Panalta Inc., and answers questions such as "Why didn't Intel patent the microprocessor?", "How did Intel convince IBM, Compaq, HP and others to place 'Intel Inside' on their computers?", and "How was Intel's microprocessor selected for IBM's personal computer?".

"The microprocessor has become truly ubiquitous," says Rob Walker, an engineer who conducted many of the interviews forming the backbone of the documentary. "Today everyone in the West owns dozens of these tiny computers. Yet the microprocessor has only been around since 1971, and has been ubiquitous only in the last decade. This program provides the context for that phenomenal growth by examining in depth the technology, business and personal stories of the pioneers."

Based in part on this oral history project, The Microprocessor Chronicles includes commentary and interviews with the likes of Gordon Moore, Ted Hoff, Stan Mazor, and Federico Faggin tell the story of the first commercially available microprocessors, the MCS-4 and then the 8008. The DVD delves into the competition between Intel and firms as Motorola, Zilog, and AMD. It also explores the advantages/disadvantages of RISC architecture, which, compared to its predecessor, the CISC architecture implemented by Intel which uses simpler but faster instructions to execute the same task. Researchers at IBM, the University of California-Berkeley, and Stanford produced the first RISC microprocessors. In the final chapter, Stanford President John Hennessy, who led Stanford's RISC research, speculates on the next advances in microprocessors.

All profits from the $49.95 DVD go to Stanford to support continued research and chronicling of the history of the semiconductor industry through the Silicon Valley Archives Project, an oral history of the Silicon Valley.

Of course from G.K. Chesterton's perspective, history is only a confused heap of facts--a position that Bierce would likely agree with, albeit grudgingly (Bitter Bierce didn't like to agree with anyone, anytime, about anything). But thanks to projects like The Microprocessor Chronicles, Bierce and Chesterton would be eating crow, if they were still around.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 04:38 AM  Permalink