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The 4004 could have performed much better than it did (up to 3x faster) if intel hadn't insisted on the 16 pin DIP. This limited how much data could be accessed per cycle and relied on shift registers etc to get full instructions and memory.


Yes, I remember Federico Faggin saying he was frustrated at Intel's policy on the number of pins.

The whole exercise does seem like Faggin, Shima and Mazor trying to produce the chip with little help from the rest of Intel.

I think given the target market though the speed wasn't a major issue and they soon rectified the mistake


So this explains where Intel is now - they've been putting corporate politics above reason from the very beginning.




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