
The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce (1983) - troydavis
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12149389/robert-noyce-tom-wolfe/
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gtycomb
I am surprised that there are so few hacker comments here. The story sends me
the goosebumps and its a keeper -- Grinnell College in Iowa where the Silicon
Valley revolution really began, what really made landing on the moon possible,
and this Robert Noyce quote in Wiki:

In his last interview, Noyce was asked what he would do if he were "emperor"
of the United States. He said that he would, among other things, "…make sure
we are preparing our next generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And that
means education of the lowest and the poorest, as well as at the graduate
school level."

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dang
Few comments on the many previous submissions too:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Tinkerings%20of%20Robert%20Noyce&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133479)
has a few, and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14650795)
has a good one.

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troydavis
Good catch - sorry for the dupe. I searched before submitting but only
searched for the URL, not the title, so I only found submissions with no votes
or discussion.

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dang
It's not a dupe because it hasn't had a significant discussion in the last
year—or in any year! This is in the FAQ:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

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rwmj
This is in general a great BBC documentary from 1978, well worth watching in
full. It might be the only time Intel permitted cameras to record the
production process of silicon chips?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5Fvk8FNOQ)

Anyway it features Robert Noyce at around 9 mins 20 secs in.

Edit: Thanks guiambros for pointing out the stupid region restriction. This
link should work for people outside the UK:
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x64ng4h](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x64ng4h)

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guiambros
Uh? " _This video contains content from Crowley Media, who has blocked it in
your country on copyright grounds._ "

Anyone having the same problem? (I'm in NY)

EDIT: ok, I got it. This is from BBC, so likely only available in the UK. I
found a copy on their site [1], and the player is more explicit - " _BBC
iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry, it’s due to rights issues._ " Need to
watch through VPN...

EDIT 2: Here's one that works [2], without VPN.

[1]
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-19771...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-19771978-now-
the-chips-are-down)

[2]
[https://archive.org/details/BBCHorizon19771978NowTheChipsAre...](https://archive.org/details/BBCHorizon19771978NowTheChipsAreDown)

~~~
doh
Actually, it's being blocked in these countries

 _' MX','GY','CL','BO','VE','PY','EC','CO','US','CA','UY','BR','PE','GF','AR'_

No idea why those, but that's their policy in YouTube

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davis
Interestingly, Robert Noyce thought this article was a bit of a tall tale by
Tom Wolfe. Here's a quote by him from 1984:

> It's interesting to me to see what an enormous amount of publicity the
> microchip has gotten recently including that article of Tom Wolfe's.
> Incidentally, on that article of Tom Wolfe's, I do want to point out that
> Tom Wolfe is first of all a novelist. And only secondarily is he a historian
> but everything that appears in print of course is true as you've all
> learned. Particularly if you ever read something that you know something
> about.

Source:
[https://youtu.be/AfxUq_QrpyY?t=2m20s](https://youtu.be/AfxUq_QrpyY?t=2m20s)

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temp_accounter
A few interesting takeaways from skimming the article:

* Shockley was ahead of his time with peer-ranking and transparent salaries

* Ageism and zero work-life balance has been a feature of the Silicon Valley landscape since its inception

* In the 1950's, the reference point for what a youthful, technically innovative, highly entrepreneurial industry would look like was the automobile industry - which would not at all be obvious to a modern reader who didn't know the early history of automobiles (I know the piece was written in the 80's, but for that part Wolfe is taking the perspective of someone in the burgeoning Silicon Valley of the 50's-60s)

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beautifulfreak
The PBS American Experience episode, "Silicon Valley," is an excellent
retelling of the Noyce-Fairchild-Intel story, well worth watching. The full
episode doesn't appear to be online anymore, but here are the first 16
minutes: [https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-silicon-
valley...](https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-silicon-valley-
chapter-1/)

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indigodaddy
Yep, saw this when it first aired, and it remains one of the most enjoyable
viewing experiences I've ever had. EDIT: The full episode is available on
Amazon Prime for anyone who is interested.

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janvdberg
If you like this, may I suggest Walter Isaacson's The Innovators. It's an
excellent book, Noyce (and Shockley) are prominently featured.

