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A comment on The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me.

Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by Synaesthesia on Thursday December 24, 2020 @07:30PM (#25533007)
It's funny when people say things like capitalism created computers and iPhones. No it was the government, primarily the military for decades right up to when they could be marketed, that was the leading researcher in this field.

Pity this was kept secret and only ever saw military use. Sounds like a very advanced processor.

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Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by mhh__ on Thursday December 24, 2020 @07:47PM (#25533118)
The government (usually the military) makes the thing with a basically unlimited space and budget, the private sector let's you buy one. Making an iPhone is not trivial in the slightest, too.

Also, the military (for the most part) pays for these inventions, the actual research and manufacture is usually still done in the private sector. That doesn't have to be the case, but if we take the Soviet Union as an example of an alternate system (Basically state-owned design Bureaus) they could just about keep up with the pace of technological development (and match in limited scope) but their populaces didn't see the "trickle down" technology.

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Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by Synaesthesia on Sunday December 27, 2020 @01:24AM (#25549284)
I once read the big problem with Soviet industry was they focused on heavy industry but not light manufacturing like Co sumer products. The Asian tigers explicitly focused on that.
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Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by ngcc_hk on Thursday December 24, 2020 @09:39PM (#25533711)
Therefore they evolve.

Instead of state we have state based capitalism. Instead of innovation by state, we have private firms which can steal from other countries freely as they are not military. And they can produce well as well. And they can go out to sell you things and selective let you in for helping in the copying.

That is Soviet Union 2.0 - china.

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Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by sn_master on Thursday December 24, 2020 @07:37PM (#25533057)
The cold war was the father and mother of the computing industry and science. Most of innovative super computers were designed and sold for the Nuclear Weapons Labs or the Lockheeds of the time.
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Re:The First Microprocessor, the F-14, and Me by tomcam on Thursday December 24, 2020 @08:21PM (#25533326)
> The device was designed by a team at a company called Garrett AiResearch on a subcontract for Grumman, the aircraft manufacturer.

Garrett AiResearch appears to have been a private company

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