Intel’s original CPU, the 4004, was built as a calculator chip, but an incredible system has been built around it that can run Debian.

That machine had a 32-bit MIPS R3000 processor running at 8 MHz; the Intel 4004 works in 4-bit nibbles and runs at 790 KHz. Yes, that's 0.79 MHz.

The Intel 4004 was among the first microprocessors and one of the first to use the MOS silicon-gate technology. In the decades long race to build bigger CPUs, it’s been mostly forgotten.

With just 2,300 transistors and an original clock speed of 740 kHz, the 1971 CPU is incredibly primitive by modern standards. And it's slow—it takes about 4.76 days for the Linux kernel to boot.

The Intel 4004 was a 740 kHz 4-bit processor with only 2,600 transistors and 16 registers. Intel specifically designed the 4004 to power the Busicom 141-PF, ...

The 4-bit Intel 4004 from 1971 predates the modern PC and the x86 CPU, but that doesn't mean it can be used to run Linux... very, very slowly.

How can we push CPUs forward? That's the question the computing industry has been asking since the Intel 4004 processor launched in 1971. Chipmakers have tried cranking up clock speeds, adding ...