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I am surprised that there are so few hacker comments here. The story sends me the goosebumps and its a keeper -- Grinnell College in Iowa where the Silicon Vall

I am surprised that there are so few hacker comments here. The story sends me the goosebumps and its a keeper -- Grinnell College in Iowa where the Silicon Valley revolution really began, what really made landing on the moon possible, and this Robert Noyce quote in Wiki: In his last interview, Noyce was asked what he would do if he were "emperor" of the United States. He said that he would, among other things, "…make sure we are preparing our next generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And that means education of the lowest and the poorest, as well as at the graduate school level."

waynecochran 8y ago
Fascinating story. I was initially compelled to read it since I will soon be working in the "Robert Noyce" building, and now I know why the CEO has a cubicle like everyone else.
dang 8y ago
Few comments on the many previous submissions too: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert%20Noyce&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479 has a few, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795 has a good one.
- troydavis 8y ago
  Good catch - sorry for the dupe. I searched before submitting but only searched for the URL, not the title, so I only found submissions with no votes or discussion.
  - dang 8y ago
    It's not a dupe because it hasn't had a significant discussion in the last year—or in any year! This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
adventured 8y ago
It's because Noyce passed away before he got widely famous like eg Gordon Moore. Outside of tech circles Andy Grove never got quite as famous as Gordon Moore, due to Moore's Law. William Shockley is less famous than all of them. And none of which became remotely as famous as Gates, and those that have come along since. Noyce was a quiet giant. Plus, to amplify that, there are a lot more software hackers here than hardware hackers. When Noyce died in 1990, the computer revolution had only barely crawled out of the cave. Silicon Valley and the US were in a recession; SV's financial might and reach was tiny compared to what it is today. It was only in the late 1980s that computer sales finally took off, global PC shipments were ~9 million in 1987, ~20 million by 1990, and 100 million by 1998. Look at the tech industry in, say, 1988: Microsoft $590m in sales. Intel $2.8b in sales. Apple was at $4b in sales. Those were three of the giants, and all of those figures were huge increases over just a few years prior. GM's sales by comparison in 1988, were $110 billion. The tech industry was tiny 30 years ago. On a side note, the 1988 Intel annual report opens with a very neat 20 year anniversary walk-through of their technology history: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/report/history-1988-annual-report.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/report/history-1988-an...

waynecochran 8y ago

Fascinating story. I was initially compelled to read it since I will soon be working in the "Robert Noyce" building, and now I know why the CEO has a cubicle like everyone else.

dang 8y ago

Few comments on the many previous submissions too: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert%20Noyce&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479 has a few, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795 has a good one.

troydavis 8y ago
Good catch - sorry for the dupe. I searched before submitting but only searched for the URL, not the title, so I only found submissions with no votes or discussion.
- dang 8y ago
  It's not a dupe because it hasn't had a significant discussion in the last year—or in any year! This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

adventured 8y ago

It's because Noyce passed away before he got widely famous like eg Gordon Moore. Outside of tech circles Andy Grove never got quite as famous as Gordon Moore, due to Moore's Law. William Shockley is less famous than all of them. And none of which became remotely as famous as Gates, and those that have come along since. Noyce was a quiet giant. Plus, to amplify that, there are a lot more software hackers here than hardware hackers. When Noyce died in 1990, the computer revolution had only barely crawled out of the cave. Silicon Valley and the US were in a recession; SV's financial might and reach was tiny compared to what it is today. It was only in the late 1980s that computer sales finally took off, global PC shipments were ~9 million in 1987, ~20 million by 1990, and 100 million by 1998. Look at the tech industry in, say, 1988: Microsoft $590m in sales. Intel $2.8b in sales. Apple was at $4b in sales. Those were three of the giants, and all of those figures were huge increases over just a few years prior. GM's sales by comparison in 1988, were $110 billion. The tech industry was tiny 30 years ago. On a side note, the 1988 Intel annual report opens with a very neat 20 year anniversary walk-through of their technology history: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/report/history-1988-annual-report.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/report/history-1988-an...