5 ms·
Calculating Pi on the 4004
- weejewel 5y agoNext: calculating 4004 on the Pi
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jrootabega 5y agoPretty easy; just calculcate 4003 and then add 1. What am I missing?
- jacquesm 5y agoA pun.
- Stupulous 5y agoEasy enough in theory. If you actually try to implement this, good luck calculating 4003 without calculating 4002 and adding one.
- jrootabega 5y agoOh, I calculated 4002 for my PhD, and I will just load an image from memory.
- bluenose69 5y agoThis is a wonderfully engaging and insightful article, giving readers a good feeling for what computing was like in the old days. Plus, there's a link to a similarly intriguing article about the ENIAC situation (see below, the PDF is available at sci hub) Shelburne, Brian J. “The ENIAC’s 1949 Determination of π.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 34, no. 3 (July 2012): 44–54. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2011.61 https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2011.61.
- hilbert42 5y agoFascinating indeed. As a comparison, it would be interesting to do the same for various other processors such as, 8008, 8048, 8080, 8085, 8051, Z80, V20, 8088/86, 8086/87 combo, etc. First we'd test these procs with a move/best fit translation of the 4004 code to 8-bit then redo the process with their additional/native instructions at 8-bit, etc. Wishful thinking I know, but I've always wanted to know how these early procs compared against each other in raw calculating power.
- fortran77 5y agoSee also Steve Wozniak's "Calculating e to 116,000 Places On An Apple ][" https://downloads.reactivemicro.com/Users/Grant_Stockley/Apple%202%20Woz%20e%20Calc%201981.pdf https://downloads.reactivemicro.com/Users/Grant_Stockley/App...
- ngcc_hk 5y agoQuite interesting. The minor issue is not using rom and ram of that era. Is the timing similar ?
- pyautogui 5y agoFacinating article! I wonder how it would compare to, say, the PDP-8/E.
- hilbert42 5y agoMuch slower (but I'd not put a figure on it)!
- phendrenad2 5y agoIs the 4004 the only 4-bit CPU chip ever made? It would be neat to see an introductory digital electronics course around eventually designing one on an FPGA. It's just simple enough to stay interesting, not getting tiring like implementing a i8080 might be.
- vardump 5y agoThere are a lot of 4-bit microcontrollers, and they're still being sold. Perfect for a mass manufactured item that requires a bit of control.