Gearfuse

Retro computer enthusiast Bill Kotaska has successfully built a replica of Busicom’s historic 141-PF printing calculator using vintage Intel chips. It’s the 37th anniversary of the world’s first single chip, customer-programmable microprocessor, the tiny Intel 4004. It was the Japanese calculator maker known as Busicom which later introduced the first product ever built around an Intel microprocessor.

So, in light of this historic event, Bill Kotaska decided to craft this re-creation of the historical machine which is capable of running the software from the original Busicom ROMs. Fancy yourself a computer historian? Bill’s got you covered as he provides schematics and photos of his re-creation at the unofficial 4004 web site, provided below.

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A lot has changed since IBM was releasing room sized computers with PC sized 1 GB hard drives. So much so, that IBM has unveiled their Power 575 Supercomputer, which runs off of one of the world’s fastest microprocessors, the Power6, and relies on an innovative cooling system to keep from exploding. More impressively, it all seems smaller than that original 1GB hard drive from way back when.

The design and hardware of the Power 575 requires 80% fewer air conditioning units, using its water cooling system to save energy consumption by 40%. IBM claims that the water system can be 4000-times more effective then traditional air cooling. The 575 monster has 448 processor cores per rack, making it 5 times faster the performance of its older brother. Each rack offers a whopping 14 2U nodes, each featuring 32 4.7-Ghz cores of Power6, and 3.5 TB of memory! — Andrew Dobrow

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IntelliDrug, an IST Program project for creating a medicine dispenser the size of a tooth. The device would be able to be implanted in the mouth of the patient, where it would be able to gradually give a measured dose of medicine to fit the patient’s needs.

Not the first body “robot” to be mentioned, the medication tooth worries us for a few reasons. This thing would have to be tested to the max before anyone decides to put this in their mouth. If something were to malfunction and spray a constant spurt of medicine, overdosing could be a huge problem.

A fully working tooth medical dispensing system would of such specifications as a built-in microprocessor for decision making and program schedules, micro sensors for determining the amount of medicine in the bloodstream, micro-actuators to release a specific amount of medication, a reservoir of the medication, all while still allowing ample space for an adequate chewing surface and will all be controlled through remote control, which will warn of impending low amounts of medicine left in the reservoir.

The device will be able to either mix the medicine with the patients saliva to be swallowed, or inject the medication directly into the bloodstream. Evil dentists everywhere are already plotting their plans of world domination. — Andrew Dobrow

Medication ‘robot’ fits inside tooth [LiveScience]