[ih] Intel 4004 vs the IMP

[Jorge Amodio]

Not sure what HP calculator they were looking at but ENIAC as far as I know
was hardly programmable and it was more time down on maintenance than
running, perhaps UNIVAC 1?

Also for the comparison I'd use off the shelf micros, there were not that
many in the early 70's.

I remember the BBN working on a PDP-11 based router and later when Bob
Hinden joined they got one done with the LSI-11, but that was around
1981-1983.

In the mid 80's and the era of Interop a lot of stuff started to show up.I
remember Excelan using 80186 to run TCP/IP on ISA boards,

Cheers
Jorge

On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 12:19 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 11/15/2021 6:19 AM, Steve Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> > Might it be possible to pin down the crossover date?  That is, when did a
> > microprocessor appear that was of the same power as the Honeywell 316?
> >
> > Alternatively, the processing needs for a router weren't staying static,
> so
> > perhaps matching the power of a H316 would not have been sufficient.  In
> > that case, the question is when did a microprocessor appear that was
> > powerful enough to serve as a router?
>
>
> Shortly after the HP handheld calculator came out, one of the engineers
> who worked on it did a short article comparing that device to ENIAC,
> built 25 years earlier.  It had a section comparing them as computers,
> and then a section comparing things like cost, size, reliability, power,
> etc.
>
> The 'computing' part of the exercise showed them to be remarkably
> similar.  The differences in the other section were impressive, of
> course.  Hand vs. room.  MTBF of hours versus years.  Etc.
>
> I think your initial question could nicely translate into a similar
> exercise, with the constraint that the 'computing' part is required to
> be roughly the same.
>
> Your alternative exercise, is separately worth doing, since there were
> entirely adequate microprocessor-based routers by the latter 1980s.
> That one might need to distinguish between 'enterprise' routers vs.
> 'backbone' routers is worth keeping in mind, though.
>
> d/
> --
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
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