Intel 8008

The Intel 8008, originally called the 1201, was one of the first microprocessors ever developed. The chip originally appeared in 1972 and carried a price tag of $120.00. It served as the heart of the Mark-8 hobby computer, described by graduate student Jonathan Titus in the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine. The Intel 8008 was also used in calculators, terminals, certain industrial machines, and simple data processors.

The 8008 comprised an 8-bit CPU (central processing unit) with an external 14-bit address bus that could access up to 16KB of combined ROM (read-only memory) and RAM (random access memory). The chip came in two designs, called the 8008, which could execute up to 100,000 instructions per second, and the 8008-1, which could execute up to 160,000 instructions per second.

Continue reading about the Intel 8008:

Nils Eilers maintains an Intel 8008 support page.

CPU World provides historical data concerning the Intel 8008 family.