On November 15, 1971, 40 years ago this Tuesday, an advertisment appeared in Electronic News for a new kind of chip – one that could perform different operations by obeying instructions given to it. That first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, a 4-bit chip developed in 1970 by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor in cooperation with the Japanese company Busicom [1] (née the Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation) for that company's adding machines. Busicom held the rights to the 4004 in 1970, but released them to Intel in 1971. Intel then offered the world's first processor for sale,...