Word: microprocessor
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...computers will, if anything, widen the gap between haves and havenots. But the prophets of high technology believe the computer is so cheap and so powerful that it could enable underdeveloped nations to bypass the whole industrial revolution. While robot factories could fill the need for manufactured goods, the microprocessor would create myriad new industries, and an international computer network could bring important agricultural and medical information to even the most remote villages. "What networks of railroads, highways and canals were in another age, networks of telecommunications, information and computerization ... are today," says Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Says French Editor...
...Boca Raton, Fla., to begin designing a small computer (the project was code-named Acorn). Twelve months later, the PC was rolling off the production line. Breaking with tradition, IBM had used many non-IBM components: the TV monitor came from Taiwan, the printer from Japan and the microprocessor from Intel Corp., a major chipmaker in which IBM last week acquired a 12% interest for $250 million. The investment was one of the largest IBM has ever made in an outside corporation. Software for the PC was provided by outside suppliers as well. To IBM's embarrassment, early users...
...foot to move in front of the other. Before it can be put to practical use, Petrofsky's 150-lb. device must be streamlined and miniaturized. "It's a mass of wires right now," says Wright State Technician Harry Heaton. "But it will eventually be a small microprocessor capable of being implanted pacemaker-style." Petrofsky says his system might be ready for commercialization within a decade. Others in the field find his optimism misleading. Says Dr. Paul Meyer, past president of the American Spinal Injury Association: "Imagine all that went into getting that young woman to take those...
Next to the pocket battlefields and miniature gridirons made possible by the microprocessor revolution, though, talking insides is old hat. There is one descendant of the line left, a Mork (of "and Mindy" fame) doll. For under $10 you can pull his string and he will say "Na-No, Na-No and seven other crazy things...
...technological, the development in the mid-'60s of the microprocessor, a computer so small that it can be fitted onto a silicon chip no bigger than a pea. As the computer shrank in size and cost, it suddenly became practical as the brains to run a robot. The second development was wage inflation. Two decades ago, a typical assembly-line robot cost about $25,000; that, plus all operating costs over its eight-year lifetime, amounted to about $4.20 an hour, slightly more than the average factory worker's wages and fringe benefits. Today that typical robot costs...