Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ted Dolotta <Ted () Dolotta ORG>
Reply-To: <Ted () Dolotta ORG>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:14:06 -0700
To: IP List <dfarber () cs cmu edu>
Subject: FW: Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article

Dave, may be of interest to the IP list members,

Ted Dolotta

=====================================================
Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article.

Firm seeks pristine copy of founder's prescient words

by Michael Kanellos, Cnet News.com

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Intel Corp. lives by Moore's Law, but it apparently
doesn't have a copy of the magazine in which the law
was first laid down.

The Santa Clara chip giant has posted a $10,000 bounty
on eBay for someone who can provide a pristine April
19, 1965, copy of Electronics magazine.

That issue of the magazine contained an article by
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that described how the
number of components on integrated circuits was
doubling every year. The article became the foundation
for his famed dictum.

"We have photocopies of the article but not the actual
issue of the magazine," an Intel spokesman said.
"Gordon doesn't have it and the Intel Museum doesn't
either."

Electronics magazine went out of business several
years ago.

Intel turned to the online auction site on Monday,
posting a message on eBay's Want It Now page offering
$10,000 for a copy of the magazine in mint condition.
(The company may buy more than one copy but at a lower
price. Intel employees and their families are
ineligible.)

Moore's Law -- which has since been revised to
estimate that the number of transistors doubles every
18 months -- has been the cornerstone for the
information technology industry for decades as it has
defined how products can simultaneously drop in price
while improving in performance. This has created a
situation in which users upgrade well before their
equipment breaks, a boon for the industry.

Despite its historical significance, the article at
the time wasn't considered a monument.

"I didn't think it would be especially accurate,"
Moore said in a recent interview.

Moore, 76, was born in San Francisco and received a
bachelor's degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley. He
was research director at the Fairchild Semiconductor
division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. when
he wrote the Electronics magazine article in 1965, and
in 1968 he co-founded Intel.

Chronicle staff contributed to this report.

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