4004!
Meet the first microprocessor--and see its uses, from pinball to electronic voting.Posted by Benj Edwards | Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Wall Bowling
Pinball and amusement giant Bally plunged headfirst into the microprocessor era when its engineers designed the 4004 into an electronic arcade game called “Bally Alley.”
Up to four players could compete using the 1974 bowling simulator, whose games played out via indicator lamps on a remote display board. The game’s controller box employed a wireless radio transmitter that eliminated the need for unsightly cords between the box and the display, which was especially handy when operators hung the virtual bowling lane on a wall.
(Photos: Bally)
November 15th, 2011 at 8:44 am
The Nutting pinball machine design was adapted (without the 4004) for a different machine. The article mentions and links to Gottlieb's Spirit of 76, but the correct machine was actually Mirco's Spirit of 76. It was Mirco's only pinball machine, about 100 were made and it was a financial failure.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Thanks for catching that, mdclayton. I accidentally referenced the wrong machine. I have now fixed it in the slideshow. It's funny how many games were named "Spirit of '76."
November 15th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
The time to load an assembler was not a function of the processor speed. In the early 70's, a audio cassette interface that ran at 300 baud would be considered fast. The Kansas City Standard, which was popular for a while with hobbyiest kits, ran at that speed. To load about an 8K byte BASIC interpreter would take about a 1/2 hour, just because it took that long to send the data over such a slow I/O interface. I had a Digital Group 8-bit computer, which in those days, first sported an 1100 baud (based on ham radio RTTY frequencies) cassette interface, which could load their 12K BASIC in about 3 1/2 minutes — a speed demon compared to other hobby computers of the day. All of this gave way quickly to first digital tape (e.g. PhiDecks) and then 8-inch floppy disk drives.
November 15th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
I remember working as a consultant for Swedish office machine supplier, Facit, in the late seventies/early eighties. They had a office system for invoicing and book-keeping (cannot remember the system name now) based on a 4004 computer. The system used a interpreted “assembly” language and was programmed using a “programmer”, which was 8008-based!
The system was compact with integrated keyboard and printer, which had split feed with one side for ledger cards and the other for continuous feed paper.
Facit later introduced a dual 8080-based, COBOL programmed (!) office system with 8″ floppies.
Times they have achanged.
November 15th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Imagine going back in time with a modern computer and showing these dudes what the outcomes would be! Absolutely amazing. It's easy to forget just how much hard work, anger and resignations went into getting to where we are today. Bless my 2.8ghz monster!
November 16th, 2011 at 12:48 am
where you mention one-line CRT display, you probably mean on-line CRT display?
November 16th, 2011 at 6:17 am
One-line is correct, according to my sources. It also makes sense given the year, the application, and the limited memory involved.
November 18th, 2011 at 7:57 am
That is one line of text not one line of pixels. But one line is correct.
November 18th, 2011 at 8:00 am
Yes, one line of text is what we're talking about. Thanks for clarifying that, Goat.
November 18th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Great slide show, Benj. I remember one of the guys on my dorm floor in college had a word processor (those short-lived machines between typewriters and PCs) with a one-line LCD display that we were all clamoring to borrow. To be able to use backspace to fix something BEFORE it was committed to paper. My, what an awesome concept. This was in 1985.
Those 4004 specs make me cringe at how little we can do despite the enormous gains in computer horsepower. 740 kHz? 40 bytes of RAM? If you had told those engineers in 1970 that within their lifetimes we'd all have machines with multiple 64-bit cores, each 5000x faster, and nearly a billion times more memory I bet they would have expected we'd do a lot more than play Angry Birds.
January 18th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
what he is saying?
Great slide show, Benj. I remember one of the guys on my dorm floor in college had a word processor (those short-lived machines between typewriters and PCs) with a one-line LCD display that we were all clamoring to borrow. To be able to use backspace to fix something BEFORE it was committed to paper. My, what an awesome concept. This was in 1985.
Those 4004 specs make me cringe at how little we can do despite the enormous gains in computer horsepower. 740 kHz? 40 bytes of RAM? If you had told those engineers in 1970 that within their lifetimes we'd all have machines with multiple 64-bit cores, each 5000x faster, and nearly a billion times more memory I bet they would have expected we'd do a lot more than play Angry Birds.
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