Intel Celebrates 40th Anniversary

It is hard to even remember a world without the personal computer (PC). Like it or not, we are all controlled and impacted by computers. That is life today in an advanced culture! And few ever pause to take into account the thousands of other applications and products that now use and that are powered by micro processors.

And the key player in it all, the Intel processor, has been the standard architecture for 40 years now. The 4004, the first ever user programmable microprocessor, was primarily the combined achievement of just three men - Ted Hoff, Masatoshi Shima and Federico Faggin. Hoff designed the logic of the 4004 but Federico Faggin did the implementation on a single silicon chip.

But most have never heard of the man who may well be the true giant in the beginnings of the original computer age. His name was Dr. An Wang. Born in China, Wang attended Harvard where he eventually started a company using his just his $600 life savings. He had no initial orders, no contracts, and not even any office furniture. The company was called Wang Laboratories and he used his contacts to sell magnetic cores which he built and sold for $4 each. Slowly Wang's company changed from being a consulting and research company into a manufacturer. His first machine was very successful, but the real breakthrough came when Wang realized that engineers and scientists needed a good desktop calculator. Later in 1971 he also saw the ‘handwriting on the wall’ for the calculator market and began The Wang word processors.

Interestingly, back in 1965, it was still believed that there was only a limited market for computers. Even Wang didn't want to get involved in building a minicomputer because he really didn't have any idea that there was a market for such a product. So he continued selling his highly advanced "calculators". The reason was that he found that, once the word "computer" was used, that management called in accountants for proposals and endless studies. By selling his machines as “calculators” he short-circuited management's attempts to control computers and allowed the engineers and scientists to buy what amounted to a minicomputer without having to seek approval from higher up! Also, a similar phenomena in the 80s got microcomputers into companies past the eyes of the data managers who were still totally preoccupied with their huge mainframes.

Today’s computers are truly amazing gadgets. Intel has just developed its 'Knights Corner' one teraflop accelerator chip capable of running at speeds equal to one trillion calculations per second. Ten years on, in 2018, Intel hopes it will be able to deliver so-called exascale-level performance, which is more than 100 times faster than currently available.


Today's processors do everything from  powering a simple GPS to directing smart bombs for the military. And most people have no idea that even their cars are running under the direction of a computer. Some find out suddenly and harshly when they have to replace one. Even the diagnosis for many vehicles  today come through a built-in micro-processor too. Most don’t understand, or care, how their PC’s work as long as they are working right. But in time, they all malfunction on some level and the average person has to either pay someone to fix them or simply buy another bigger and better model.

But when analyzing the incredible ability of even a common household PC, or even what a modern cell phone call do, I often wonder what the depths of God’s mind must be like? What must His full knowledge entail if he has given simple, sinful, finite men the brains to devise such incredible world-changing items as the mico-processor? Some feel our now highly computer-dominated world has great prophetic significance and that the Anti-Christ will put them into use for his wicked purposes as predicted in Scripture at the end of the human age. (Revelation 13:17)

But as advanced as the computer may become, its capabilities remain but an infinitesimal fraction of the knowledge of the mind of an almighty Creator. 2 Timothy 3:7 describes those who may have great levels of human knowledge, but cannot understand the most basic process and the deepest and most important data of all. Verse seven describes them as, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That truth is God’s truth – the truth about man’s sinful condition, his redemption in Christ, and even about the purpose for life and the major issues affecting the condition and future of the creation itself!

Scripture reveals that those who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ have something no computer can compete with, replace or figure out. It is described in 1 Corinthians 2:14-16. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” Having the ‘mind of Christ’ is a direct result of His glorious salvation and the subsequent and permanent indwelling of His Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:13 records, “These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

Intel must be proud to have had such a major part in transforming the world via their micro processor over the last four decades. But the transformation that dwarfs the power and potential of any computer is the instantaneous change of the internal data in man’s heart when he or she attains access to the endless depths of the mind of Christ. This is all revealed on the spec sheet manual in God’s Word which becomes understandable and important to every true believer at the moment of the new birth. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 puts it like this, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Part of that ‘newness’ is a total upgrade in the heart’s and soul’s processor – something no man-made micro-processor chip will ever comprehend or compete with.

Computers will continue to get faster, smarter, better and gain more control of daily life. But they will never be any match to the internal wisdom that makes possible the quality of life available to those whose bodies house the ultimate and eternal living processor through God’s Spirit as Ephesians 1:17-18 describes.

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”

Bill Breckenridge