> From: "Mike Carrell" ...
> As I recall, the first integrated circuits did not cause > much of a stir, because the computer market at the time > had accomodated to the idea of cards with a few gates or > flip-flops on it. The Army was investing heavy bucks > inthe micromod program, which used stacks of ceramic > wafers with components on them with wires running up the > sides. It was the USAF who ***needed*** integrated > circuits at any price and paid real heavy cold war bucks > to fundthe program. Otherwise, history might be quite > different. All of that was based on well known > technology, but a trememdous effort was required to get > the circuit density up and the unit cost down. No such > drive has been focused on BLP, or LENR, for that matter. > > The entrepreneural drive of applications came **after** > the devices were available. you did not and do hot have > people making ICs their basement. > For what it's worth, I recently read a fascinating book that described the history of "the chip". How it came into being. Based on what I read much of what Mr. Carrell has had to say on this subject appears to be pretty accurate. Go to Amazon.com. The book is titled "The Chip" by T. R. Reid. I enjoyed reading it. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375758283/qid=1115324620/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2593695-8176836 *************************************** >From Publishers Weekly In 1958, "before Chernobyl, before the Challenger rocket blew up, before the advent of Internet porn or cell phones that ring in the middle of the opera," when "`technological progress' still had only positive connotations," Jack Kilby had a good idea, but wasn't sure if his boss at Texas Instruments in Dallas would let him try it. In 1959, in what would become Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce had the same idea about overcoming "the numbers barrier" in electronics: "in a computer with tens of thousands of components... things were just about impossible to make," says Noyce. In his completely revised and updated edition of The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution, Washington Post reporter and columnist T.R. Reid (Confucius Lives Next Door) investigates these underappreciated heroes of the technological age and the global repercussions of their invention. The enormity of their accomplishment was fully recognized only in 2000, when Kilby won the ! Nobel Prize. 3-city author tour. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. *************************************** Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
