| Posted By
SVS
on 2011-10-16
10:41:41
 |  Eng. Faggin (inventor of uP) conference
I was one of the lucky participant of a little friendly conference of eng. Faggin near my village, yesterday evening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Faggin
If someone likes to hear more info (about his work, ideas) just ask me for.
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Posted By
Bionic
on 2011-10-16
08:50:55
| Re: Eng. Faggin (inventor of uP) conference
I have been interested in the history of the microprocessor for quite some time. One thing I learned is that F. Faggin has serious issues with his self image and goes through great lengths trying to manipulate the public image of his contributions to the i4004. I guess there are still some unrespolved issues with his former colleagues.
Some examples:
- He and his wife seem to be responsible for a large chunk of the wikipedia article on him and the i4004. (Check out the history)
- He maintains the website www.intel4004.com, which is heavily biased towards his contributions
It is clear that he contributed a lot to the i4004 - my understanding is that he did the layout/circuit design and was partially responsible for the technology. However, the system design and architecture were not done by him, and one could argue that this is what constitutes a CPU.
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Posted By
SVS
on 2011-10-16
16:18:17
| Re: Eng. Faggin (inventor of uP) conference
Hello Bionic,
the sensation I felt was the opposite of your opinion. Really mr. Faggin explained correctly and with humbleness the history. He many times pointed up the fact that he only found the solutions to integrate logic blocks having not invented them. At a specific question of one of my friend, he replied that yes Stack-system and IRQ were fantastic intuitions, but not its.
About the 4004, Intel had some failed attempts when gave him the project. He and his staff realized it in about 9 months. A significant reason of success was his knowledge of Silicon Gate technology that himself did develop a few years before for Fairchild semiconductors. The 4004 circuit has a visible sign on its circuitry: F.F.
Apart the 4004, he was the father of 8080, Z80, the Z8 and more recently of Touch-pad.
Now he sold all its companies and just created a no-profit foundation with the target to scientifically study and understand the human brain capacity of self-awareness.
A great man.
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Posted By
Bionic
on 2011-10-17
16:16:13
| Re: Eng. Faggin (inventor of uP) conference
Hi SVS,
thanks for responding in a polite manner. I may have been a bit harsh on him. Honestly, it's nothing I should be bothered about. I had some contact with Stan Mazor, who used to post on the Usenet years ago and he came off as a very helpful person. He was responsible for most of the systems architecture of the i4004, as I understand. It's good that F.F. is taking care of archiving some of the history around the i4004. But I still can't help but feel that a lot of it is extremely self centered. I guess that easily happens when you are the curator of your own work. It was quite common in the earlier years for layout designers to leave their initials on an integrated circuit, so that does not surprise me. But again, that does not relate to the systems design etc.
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