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This is a rare Intel P4004 CPU never used in original plastic holder New Out of Stock, NOS. This is Intel's very first CPU and it's quite a piece of computer history in itself. The packaging is plastic resin 16 pin DIP (Dual Inline Package) with tin pins. This item is NOS and has been in its original packaging since manufacture date. Date code is 7645 (This is 45th day of 1976). It has Intel’s logo of single letter “i” and was manufactured in Malaysia as most all chips of the period were to save in assembly cost. The P4004 was the world's first microprocessor. In the late 1960s, many scientists had discussed the possibility of a computer on a chip, but nearly everyone felt that integrated circuit technology was not yet ready to support such a chip. Intel's Ted Hoff felt differently; he was the first person to recognize that the new silicon-gated MOS technology might make a single-chip CPU (central processing unit) possible. Hoff and the Intel team developed such architecture with just over 2,300 transistors in an area of only 3 by 4 millimeters. With its 4-bit CPU, command register, decoder, decoding control, control monitoring of machine commands and interim register, the P4004 CPU was an extraordinary and amazing little invention. A 4 bit Central Processor Unit, CPU, in the 1970s was revolutionary. Today's 64-bit microprocessors are still based on similar designs, and the microprocessor is still the most complex mass-produced product ever with more than 5.5 million transistors performing hundreds of millions of calculations each second - numbers that are sure to be outdated fast. Note - The Pioneer 10 spacecraft used the P4004 microprocessor. It was launched on March 2, 1972 and was the first spacecraft and microprocessor to enter the Asteroid Belt. This is truly a museum piece that was a computer first in history from 30+ years ago.
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