Olivetti and the Rise and Fall of Computer Manufacturing in Italy

Federico Faggin has had a series of remarkable careers. He has written a wonderful book, Silicon: From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New Science of Consciousness, describing his adventures at Olivetti, Fairchild, Intel, Zilog, Synaptics, and more recently, searching for a theory of consciousness. I met him in the 1970s when we used to attend the IEEE Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop every year, and his accounts of what really happened in the early years at Intel and Zilog were always enlightening.

In the post here on 2021-11-17, “Fifty Years Ago—Intel 4004: The First Commercial Microprocessor” there is a video from the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the 4004 with Ted Hoff and Federico Faggin recounting the origin of that chip.

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