Old Calculator Museum Interview on National Public Radio's Marketplace Morning Report
Interview aired 12/16/2022
The Old Calculator Museum was honored to be interviewed by
Mr. David Brancaccio, Host & Senior Editor of the Marketplace Morning
Report on National Public
Radio. Mr. Brancaccio was working on a piece on the 75th anniversaary
of the Transistor and
came across the Old Calculator Web Museum site, and thought perhaps since
the electronic calculator was the driving force behind the development of
the transistor as a digital device in a consumer product, an interview
might prove interesting.
On November 21, Mr. Brancaccio contacted the museum via EMail asking
if I would be interested in doing a brief interview session with him
regarding the Busicom 141-PF electronic calculator,
the first electronic calculator to use a microprocessor programmed
to carry out the oeprations of the calculator. That microprocessor was
what became the Intel 4004.
On December 6, Mr. Alex Schroeder, the producer of the show, called me
on the phone, introduced himself and provided a quick summary of what to
expect, and then introduced Mr. Brancaccio, who gave a little background
on the story, which was to celebrate the 75th birthday of the invention of
the transistor, clearly a red-letter day in the history of humanity.
Both gentlemen were very kind and easy to communicate with, and were
eager to answer any questions I had, as well as being very informative
about the interview process. I was very eager to help, and looked foreard
to the day of the interview.
I was on pins-and-needless, both nervous and excited the day of the
interview, which was set for 9:00 AM my time (Noon their time in New York).
Right on time, the phone rang, and it was Alex on the line.
He introduced himself, and we chatted for a few minutes about myself
and my passion(obsession), which helped me to relax some. He gave me a
rundown of what to expect, asked if I had any questions, which I didn't,
and then turned to call over to the host of the Marketplace Morning Report,
David. David introduced himself to me, and again we chatted for a few moments
After Mr. Brancaccio get his introduction, he got his audio engineer set
to record the conversation, and once he signaled he was ready, we dug in.
The interview consisted of a number of specific questions about transistor
technoloyg and how it applied to electronic calculator technology, and then
led to the shrinkage of the transistor down to a microscopic device were
thousands, and later, millions and even billions of transistors could be
placed and connected together on a small sheet of silicon. The ability
to place so many transistors (as well as other electrical components)
on a chip is what made the microprocessor possible.
Mr. Brancaccio's questions were well-prepared and interesting, and I really
enjoyed doing the interview.
Parts of the interview relating to the Busicom 141-PF calcultor were
included in the overall report that aired on December 16, 2022.
You can listen to the story by clicking below:
While the Intel 4004 was definitely not
the first "CPU core on a chip", a.k.a. microprocessor, it was the first
commercially produced example of such a device, and clearly, it marked
the beginning of the microprocessor revolution, which absolutely changed
the world.
While the Busicom 141-PF calculator proved not to be all that successful
due in part to it costing a bit more than similarly-featured desktop
calculators that used more traditional calculator ICs as their brains,
as well as being introduced at a time where the price of single-chip
calculator ICs was plummeting, further allowing prices on calculators
to fall. Despite that, the 141-PF proved the point that the core of a
computer's central processing unit (CPU) crammed onto a single chip,
using Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) transistors combined with a few
other chips to provide memory (RAM), program storage(ROM), and I/O
functions, could effectively replace a (at the time of its conception)
whole heap of traditional integrated circuits with software. This concept
became the basis for these tiny CPUs to initially become embedded in
various kinds of calculator-like devices, such as cash registers, point-of-
sale systems, calculating scales, and time-clocks. It didn't take long
for them to end up as controllers in consumer devices; from the control
& display in a microwave oven, to the basis of electronic toys like
Simon (the first such toy). The devices soon also began to replacing
masses of relay logic in process automation systems, dramatically
decreasing the complexity and cost, and vastly improving the capabilities
of such systems.
Eventually, these
devices became powerful enough that some enterprising folks like
Ed Roberts of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, designed
a small computer system using a later version of Intel's CPU on a chip
as its CPU, the Intel 8080. By doing so, Roberts created
the first practical and successful commercial "home computer",
the Altair 8800. As can be surmised, this was the humble beginnings
of Intel's domination of personal computer
technology that still persists to this day - and it all came to be out
of a bind that Intel got itself into when it agreed to make a batch of
complex chips for Nippon Calculating Machine Co., Ltd. back in April of
1969, found it couldn't make the chips as specified, and scrambled
to find a solution.
