The world's first microprocessor was a U.S. government project

The F14 CADC, from F-14A Central Air Data Computer, designed by Steve Geller and Ray Holt of Garrett AiResearch Corp. and completed in June 1970, was the world's first multiple-chip microprocessor. The MOS-LSI chipset was developed for the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter jet.

***The Intel 4004, released on 15 November 1971, was the first single-chip microprocessor. However, the 4004 was a simple 4-bit CPU, without pipelining and other 'luxurious' facilities, and hence was much less capable than the CADC.***

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

This site describes the design work for a MOS-LSI microprocessor chip set designed starting June 1968 and completed by June 1970. This highly integrated computer chip set was designed for the US Navy F14A "TomCat" fighter jet by Mr. Steve Geller and Mr. Ray Holt (Ray's Biography) while working for Garrett AiResearch Corp under contract from Grumman Aircraft, the prime contractor for the US Navy. The MOS-LSI chips were manufactured by American Microsystems, Inc of Santa Clara, California.

The MOS-LSI chip set was part of the Central Air Data Computer (CADC) which had the function of controlling the moving surfaces of the aircraft and the displaying of pilot information. The CADC received input from five sources, 1) static pressure sensor, dynamic pressure sensor, analog pilot information, temperature probe, and digital switch pilot input. The output of the CADC controlled the moving surfaces of the aircraft. These were the wings, maneuver flaps, and the glove vane controls. The CADC also controlled four cockpit displays for, Mach Speed, Altitude, Air Speed, and Vertical Speed. The CADC was a redundant system with real-time self-testing built-in. Any single failure from one system would switch over to the other. Two state-of-the-art quartz sensors, a 20-bit high precision analog-to-digital converter, a 20-bit high precision digital-to-analog converter, the MOS-LSI chip set, and a very efficient power unit made up the complete CADC. A team of over 25 managers, engineers, programmers, and technicians from AiResearch and American Microsystems labored for three years to accomplish a design feat never before attempted, a complete state-of-the-art, highly integrated, digital air data computer. Previous designs were based around mechanical technology, consisting of precision gears and cams.

In 1971, Mr. Ray Holt wrote a design paper on the MOS-LSI chip set design which was approved for publication by Computer Design magazine. However, because of national security reasons the U.S. Navy would not approve this paper for publication. Mr. Holt attempted again in 1985 to have the paper cleared and the answer again was no. Finally, in April 1997, he started the process again and this time was able to receive clearance for publication as of April 21, 1998.

Source: www.microcomputerhistory.com...

Link to the published papers on the project: www.microcomputerhistory.com...

Just goes to show you how much more advanced the government is then any civilian technology. Not only where the able to produce a microprocessor before the Intel 4004 but it was much more powerful. Makes you wonder how many years ahead they are now with computer components.

(Is it just me or is the font a little different...?)

[edit on 20-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]

I found an interesting site stating something nothing short of amazing about government technology.

I disconnected the unit and, out of curiosity, I removed the rear access cover. To my amazement, there were some half-dozen large hybrid integrated circuit chips inside. The largest chip had over 500 hair-thin leads attached and was approximately the size of a Zippo lighter. The paper inspection stamp on the chip was dated 1975.

In 1975 the most advanced processor speeds, on the most classified projects were equivalent to a IBM 8088 which ran at 4 million cycles per seconds. This unit had a processor speed of 1 billion cycles per second. It wasn’t until more than a dozen years had passed before I saw comparable technology with integrated circuit chips. Then it was at a Top Secret avionics development project at ITT.

From: www.wealth4freedom.com...

1 gigahertz in 1975! The public didint have a chip like that until 1999. This is truly mind blowing if it was true, but the source is not that reliable... Although im sure the government had more advanced chips, i doubt they where that fast back the. Makes you wonder what they have now.

[edit on 21-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]

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Interesting and insightful historical info, beyondSciFi.

Does make one wonder what the government might have now, of which the public is unaware.

Probably not the UFO fantasy stuff, but they might have some pretty amazing stuff. Estimate 10 years ahead on the technology curve.
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microprocessor controled avionic guidance systems in 1954 at White Sands.

Do you really think the trans-sonic wing morphing F-14 was really designed using computer power less then what would be designed and spec'd for it in its avionic package ??? Humm.

Understandably the engineers used massive tape drive computer banks for crunching numbers, but to design high technology items you need something that can have the computational power to "out think" the end product. Otherwise you would always be gambling as to the outcome of your design. And granted many leaps in IC technology was by trial and error.

But the Goverment has more "brain power" in R&D then it lets on.

Originally posted by slank
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Interesting and insightful historical info, beyondSciFi.

Does make one wonder what the government might have now, of which the public is unaware.

Probably not the UFO fantasy stuff, but they might have some pretty amazing stuff. Estimate 10 years ahead on the technology curve.
.

well, studies shows that US government is at least 30 years adhead of it's civilian world and tech. i wanna know the truth! i want to know everything they got, i want to know the billions that we spend on the black projects for!!! we spend more on black projects than the entire chinese army, navy, airfoce etc... right now, they must have something really good and some pretty high tech stuff up in their sleaves.

Originally posted by slank
Estimate 10 years ahead on the technology curve.

I've heard the military is more like 50 years ahead, but can't recall the source.

Scifi, that last link is interesting, but is on page 3. When I try page 1, it goes somewhere else. Can you provide the beginning. I would like to know who is being interviewed. I see the mention of the TR3B and Roswell material. So I gotta know more. Thanks.

I first thought this thread was about the first commercial micros, but secret military stuff is better. I remember my first PC was an IBM 8088, running on DOS 2.0 or something. Things sure have changed.

I was reading an article in Discover Magazine about using carbon nano tubes for conducting electricity near superconductor levels. This is almost equivelent to a quantum computer which speeds would be unfathomable. The military probably already has this technology. Who knows.

You know, I read and actually believed that the microprocessor wasn't invented until 1988. I guess the only reason I believed that is I didn't really care, It was just another useless fact.

Makes me wonder how many other useless facts I have that are not only totaly wrong but masked in ignorance.

It's not that i'm a dummy...well, ok, it's that i'm a dummy.

Thanks for the info. Now all I have to do is rethink every last thought in my head.

Love and light,

Wupy

Originally posted by Hal9000
Scifi, that last link is interesting, but is on page 3. When I try page 1, it goes somewhere else. Can you provide the beginning. I would like to know who is being interviewed. I see the mention of the TR3B and Roswell material. So I gotta know more. Thanks.

Sure Hal here is the link: www.wealth4freedom.com...

Its a interesting stroy this guys tells, but i don't know how much of it true though. I found only one or two small errors in what he said but never the less it a good read.

thats incredible. I can belive it though. They are holding out with technology. They have to. Military comes first. Defense comes first.

Do you know what processors they have in thier tanks these days? omg.

I'm skeptical about the government having micro proccessors 30-50 years more advanced than the civilian populace. The government would be hard pressed to build the fabrication plants to build the processors and for them to have one running at 1 Gig back in '75 they would have to have been working on it for at least 5 maybe 10 years prior. It took a lot of breakthroughs in cpu design just to it 1 ghz period. Not to mention 100 mghz or 500 mghz. Really id say it'd be pretty amazing if the technology to hit 1 ghz even existed in 75.

I know the military has specially designed hardware for there computers that are made for specific tasks. Such as air traffic control and battle field deployment tracking systems but there cpu speeds would still be throttled by current technologies. The military does have special cpu's designed to do a certain task more efficiently than any normal cpu would do and they have motherboards with many more layers than what we have now(for whatever reason i don't know). As the cpu speeds of our day increased so did our manufacturing proccesses. Intel pioneered the processes needed to increase the cpu speed and attributes.

The government has more money and resources than anyone else. But for them to be able to build a theoretical cpu that could operate at speeds of oh say 50-100 ghz(w/e you want I'm just compensating for moores law and the years going by) then they'd be making them out of diamonds or some other unknown material that could dissipate heat in much the same way as diamond can. Because a cpu made of silicon running at those speeds more literally require N20 to cool it(liquid nitrogen) or it would melt anything that it touched and burn up into a smoldering pile of technological crap. And really you'd need something a little more intense than even N20 cooling it.

So after all that rambling(i know u love me) and in conclusion. Unless the government were making cpu's out of diamonds or some material that could dissipate heat in an amazing and really almost impossible way. Unless the government created large and very noticeable Fabrication factory's for there special cpu's. And unless the government bought computers and had super computers built for them for nothing and just to cover up the fact that they had these super fast cpu's. I doubt it.

I'm not knocking you by the way beyondscfi. I just read a lot about these type of things and i know how our current cpu's and some of our future ones work and how there built(or at least in what way). The government doesn't have cpu's that run at 50-100 ghz. But they do have huge server farms of cpu's dedicated to certain tasks which would equate to being much more powerful than what we have today. You might wanna check out www.top500.org and I'm sure that they don't list everything they've got but it gives you a good picture of where were at.

No duh - HELLO the company is called "Intel" & what, that is just like a
"Co-Incidence"? Yeah & "RAND" is not Really the CIA & DarpaNet (the "Packet" idea) was no Big Deal really!

I suggested that stuff like Silicon Integrated Circuit Transistors & Lasers & Optical Tech in General (including "Discs" & "Fiber Optics") was all back Engineered by the Government from some "Unknown Source" (Wink, Wink) on ATS a while ago - didn't really make a big stir! These guys then wanted to make Money by going into the Private Sector - while continuing to develop the Tech & eventually Selliing the Final Products to the Public or other Corps (& yes they got Rich indeed)! Now what do you guys think of this Revelation?

[edit on 22-4-2005 by Seraphim_Serpente]

I think ur wrong lol. No offence man just my take on it.

Dude, thanks for that very insightful thought....and what do you base you opinion on ? BTW I remember reading or hearing somwhere that hte government is meant to be nearly 50 years ahead with technology than what we believe....What do you guys think about this ? I dont knwo personnally, I think 25 maybe but 50 is a little OTT !!!

Originally posted by Seraphim_Serpente
No duh - HELLO the company is called "Intel" & what, that is just like a
"Co-Incidence"? Yeah & "RAND" is not Really the CIA & DarpaNet (the "Packet" idea) was no Big Deal really!

Intel is not really "Intel". Intel stands for Integrated Electronics. See logo:

"Intel" doesnt get its name from the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) as some people think, maybe your just reading too much into everything. Just because its a coincidence doesnt mean what your saying is right.

[edit on 22-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]

The difference is that people like Intel have to build Thousands of the same processor, which demands large processing and manufacturing facilities at multiple sites.

The goverment on the other hand is building a few handfuls of advanced technology, which require less machinery and less facilities.

When you are making 250,000 or more chips the resources it takes are vastly different then when you are making 1 of maybe 500 which include all of the spares. With JIT orders of maybe 50 at a time. Some intel commercial processors can be produced as many as 10,000 or more per day. A goverment processor may need to be produced 1 in 1 or maybe 2weeks thats 4 per month. (not all of them but I am just saying in a highly specialized limited run like say control chips for the X-43 (?) Hyper Sonic test bed)

So the agian, lower production # greater resources per each IC more advanced each IC then can be for the dollars spent on each unit.

Higher production #'s less resources per each IC lower achievable tech level based on dollars spent per each unit produced.

That would make alot more sence. Im glad you brought that up robertfenix. But I still have to hold true to the government cant possibly have cpu's running at 50-100 ghz unless they've allready perfected a method of producing chips out of diamonds or some other such material.

Its much more likely that they produce a certain type of cpu for a certain task. Its just not possible at this time. We dont even have the tech to shrink the tran's to such a level(i dont even know how small that would have to be but certaintly far far below 65 nm's.

Also does anyone know off the top of there head what the smallest transistors that we can make are before we start having electron bleeding?

Originally posted by Civil44
Also does anyone know off the top of there head what the smallest transistors that we can make are before we start having electron bleeding?

Yeah, around the 16nm process you would get heavy electron bleeding, when the tranisitor gate is around 4-5nm in size. Although if we start using carbon nanotubeing that size drops to around 1-2nms.

Source: news.com.com...

[edit on 22-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Well we are up to 90nm now w/ 65nm to come! Intel is already having problems with Heat & Bleeding - they are unwilling to release a 4Ghz CPU (although oddly enough they have a 3.8 GHz one out - .2 GHz more is a Big Problem?)! Not that I am so Obsessed with Clock Speed - that is just one of MANY Factors that figures into a Systems Performance!

Overclockers have allready run P4's at 5 ghz and probobly 6 but im not sure about the last one. And some athalons have reached well over the 3ghz mark maybe 4 due to overclocking and N2O cooling. But your absolutly right the clock speed is only one of many things that make up how fast your system will run. The biggest system bottleneck being your harddrive. 15k Raptors anyone?

Actually I have seen a couple of Pentium 4's running at 3.8 ghz overclocked past 7 Ghz but only one overclocked to 8ghz (I cant find the site again.. ). Here is the link to one of them : eatliver.com... It has a nice pic of one at a little over 7GHZ.

[edit on 22-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]