Fifty Years Ago .... from the pages of Computer Weekly

2nd May 1974 computing, compiled by TNMOC volunteer archivist, Brian Aldous.

A selection of stories from Computer Weekly from 2nd May 1974. The full archive of Computer Weekly can be seen at TNMOC, where there are special rolling displays of front pages from 25 and 40 years ago.

Intel 8080 is ten times faster:
Leading microprocessor manufacturer Intel has announced a new product, the 8080, which is compatible with the established 8008 but is about 10 times faster. A quantity price of $360 (£150) has been quoted in the US. The new microprocessor is a fully parallel eight-bit unit with an instruction cycle time of two microseconds, and a repertoire of 78 instructions. It is a 40-pin device with 14 control lines, an eight-line bidirectional databus and a 16 line bus for addressing the memory and for input/output selection. Through this bus system the 8080 can access directly up to 64K bytes of memory, operate up to 256 input and 256 output channels and handle up to eight interrupt levels. (CW391 2/5/1974 p7)