The Microprocessor

1971 CE — North America, United States

Today: Silicon Valley, California

Intel put an entire computer processor on a single sliver of silicon and sold it as a product — the 4004, built for a Japanese calculator company, containing 2,300 transistors. Computing had been a room-sized activity owned by governments and corporations; now it could be embedded in anything and bought by anyone. The industry then discovered a peculiar regularity: the number of transistors on a chip kept roughly doubling every two years, a pattern named Moore's Law that held for half a century. No other technology has compounded at that rate for that long — which is why the phone in your pocket outclasses everything that flew to the Moon.

Worth knowing: The first microprocessor was designed for a desktop calculator, and Intel initially sold the chip's rights back to the Japanese client for $60,000 — then bought them back, which turned out to be the most profitable refund in corporate history.

Pattern: Information-medium revolution — A new way to record or transmit information lowers the cost of copying ideas and reorders who holds knowledge and power.

Entry 227 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.