I heard the Aztecs went to the moon eons before that other Armstrong guy :)
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 6:34 PM Paul Koning via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > On Nov 21, 2023, at 7:13 PM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > On 21/11/2023 23:14, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote: > >> More information is here: > >> > https://firstmicroprocessor.com/?doing_wp_cron=1700608229.8666059970855712890625 > >> > >> I think that is the designers (Rod Holt?) website. Apparently he won a > legal battle to use the term "first microprocessor" for whatever that is > worth. > > > > Details were published in 1998 and the chip was available approximately > never (I presume, unless you were building a Tomcat) so I'm not sure you > should count it. Perhaps "first microprocessor, until someone else claims > another secret design that was even earlier" would be a more accurate claim? > > Remember the guy at the British spook agency (GCHQ?) who said he invented > RSA a long time before Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman did? Perhaps so, but > the fact that it was all secret means it didn't matter to the real world. > > This sort of thing happens a lot, in inventions or discoveries. There > were types of telegraphs before S.F.B. Morse came along, but his design > took over the world. There were Europeans who traveled to America before > Columbus, but nothing came of those explorations and they were pretty much > forgotten. And FM radio was first invented in 1919 by a Dutch engineer > (Hanso Idzerda), not around 1930 by Edwin Armstrong -- but Idzerda's design > was a technological dead end and disappeared from view by the late 1920s, > while Armstrong's design became universal and remains so. > > So I tend to qualify "first to invent" (or "discover") as "first to invent > and make it matter". > > paul > > >
