Gordon E. Moore, the Intel Co-Founder Behind Moore’s Law, Dies at 94

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,426
2,357
136
Gordon E. Moore the Intel Co-Founder Behind Moore’s Law Dies at 94.png


Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder and former chairman of Intel Corporation, the California semiconductor chip maker that helped give Silicon Valley its name,
achieving the kind of industrial dominance once held by the giant American railroad or steel companies of another age, died on Friday at his home in Hawaii. He was 94.
His death was confirmed by Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. They did not provide a cause.
Along with a handful of colleagues, Mr. Moore could claim credit for bringing laptop computers to hundreds of millions of people and embedding microprocessors into
everything from bathroom scales, toasters and toy fire engines to cellphones, cars and jets.
 
Last edited:

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,270
8,575
136
Does the link in the OP get everyone beyond the paywall? If not, I can provide one here in this thread that does for 14 days... [that's a really good article]
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,270
8,575
136
I still have my first CPU, an Intel 486DX that powered my 1st computer bought used off a Persian immigrant electrical engineer living near Silicon Valley (Concord, CA). I brought that machine home on public transit on my lap. Moore's Law greased my life. Was anyone more responsible for the computer revolution? I don't think so.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: igor_kavinski

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
70,068
28,637
136
Moore's Law would be a great name for a Silicon Valley based private detective show. The tag line "Double down, double down" would appear in every episode.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Pohemi
Jul 27, 2020
19,475
13,352
146
I still have my first CPU, an Intel 486DX that powered my 1st computer bought used off a Persian immigrant electrical engineer living near Silicon Valley (Concord, CA).
I'm guessing yours is the DX-50 working at 50 MHz. Mine was the inferior DX2-66 (double clocked. Actual 33 MHz). Did you throw away the PC and keep the CPU?
 
Jul 27, 2020
19,475
13,352
146
Gordon Moore
is
no
more.
(he has ceased to be)
It's amazing how one man's contributions can have a massive ripple effect, changing billions of lives. There would be like a hundred different computer architectures right now if the 8086 hadn't taken off.
 

Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
11,822
2,701
136
There's like three phases of "history".

Living in the moment
Memory
Being a ancient foreign artifact.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
38,270
8,575
136
I'm guessing yours is the DX-50 working at 50 MHz. Mine was the inferior DX2-66 (double clocked. Actual 33 MHz). Did you throw away the PC and keep the CPU?
That chip is 33MHz. I swapped it after a bit with an AMD 486DX2 66MHz CPU, which was compatible with the rig, a desktop with a proprietary local bus MB, Vesa Local Bus was right around the corner but had not come out when the guy had put the system together, an EE like I say. He made his living at the time doing Autocad, on small scale architectural plans, I believe. It ran Windows 3.1.

Not long after upgrading the CPU in the system I went to an outdoors computer swap meet and passed up an opportunity to sell that 33MHz CPU for $100. Must have been 1993-94. At the time I had no idea how fast computer hardware would become obsolete and basically worthless!

Yeah, I got rid of the rig when I upgraded, built my own system doing a ton of online research to make sure all the components were going to work together harmoniously. Went mid-tower.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: igor_kavinski
Jul 27, 2020
19,475
13,352
146
Not long after upgrading the CPU in the system I went to an outdoors computer swap meet and passed up an opportunity to sell that 33MHz CPU for $100.
Put it up on eBay now for bidding. You never know. Someone may be willing to pay an insane amount for that to complete their collection or use it for a retro gaming rig. I bet 99% of these chips are in landfills or recycled by now.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,712
2,662
136
Dig... this comment to the NYTimes article:

Tim Clark
Los Angeles23m ago
If you are interested in how Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and the Traitorous Eight invented Silicon Valley, you won't find a better read than "The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce," Tom Wolfe's final article for Esquire Magazine:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12149389/robert-noyce-tom-wolfe/
Great read, a lot better than NYT’s obit on Gordon Moore IMO. Oddly enough, the byline for the obit credits a former editor who passed away in 2017. So this obituary was written a long time ago (in advance is standard industry practice).

I'm guessing yours is the DX-50 working at 50 MHz. Mine was the inferior DX2-66 (double clocked. Actual 33 MHz). Did you throw away the PC and keep the CPU?
Didn‘t the DX-50 run hot, and didn’t sell very many? I don’t think the DX2 and later clock-multiplied CPUs were inferior. IIRC these introduced the multiplier from bus clock rate to CPU core clock rate, at least for x86 procs. I don’t know if RISC chips were already doing that.

I hoard some old tech crap so I’d rather keep an i486 proc than sell it on eBay. Different story if I’d been smart enough to buy an original iPhone and never open it up. One was recently auctioned for an insane amount. Ancient stuff has a lot of sentimental value to us, a 2007 iPhone not so much for me.

There‘s a YT series from a guy who bought a 1980s era, obscure minicomputer and has been tinkering with it for a while. His videos just ooze pure joy from getting that shit running, even though it’s a business computer with almost no sentimental value or practical function whatsoever.