Ah, but you've hit a sore spot for an IBM retiree. This is someone's
idea of a joke but hardly accurate. In particular, the year is not well
chosen since it was 1968 that IBM introduced MST (Monolithic Systems
Technology) which was IBM's first truly integrated ciruitry where there
were more than a few circuits on a chip. For a photo and text see the
next to last paragraph on this page:
<http://www.thegalleryofoldiron.com/MISC.HTM>
And from the Texas Instruments integrated circuits collection at the
Smithsonian you can see that IBM and TI were working closely together on
manufacturing technology since the early 60's with IBM teaching TI how
to build the stuff. <http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/texas/t_028.htm>
TI and Fairchild are given the honor of having conceived of the
integrated circuit in 1958. But it was another 10 years before anybody
figured out how to build and package this stuff with anything other than
a trivial number of circuits. The Intel 4004 (the first real processor
on a chip) didn't come about until 1971.
Chuck Norcutt
Walt Wayman wrote:
> An IBM engineer in 1968, referring to the microchip: "But what is it good
> for?"
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