Marcian Hoff was working on developing an integrated circuit for desktop calculators when he decided to develop a general purpose circuit that would function as a computer processor.  He dubbed this circuit the 4004 because it had a 4 bit data bath.  The chip was part of a system which also included a 256 byte ROM, a 32 bit RAM and a shift register.  The 4004 contained over 2,000 transistors.  At the time the intent was to use the 4004 in a variety of devices in which it could be modified for whatever purpose.  Unfortunately for Hoff, the chip was originally rejected by companies who did not realize how much more powerful Hoff’s chip was. 

Next : 1974 - The first truly general purpose microprocessor is created
 

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