- Heinlein’s Fan Mail Solution (kk.org)
Heinlein engineered his own nerdy solution to a problem common to famous authors: how to deal with fan mail. In the days before the internet, Heinlein’s solution was fabulous. He created a one page FAQ answer sheet – minus the questions. Then he, or rather his wife Ginny, checked off the appropriate answer and mailed it back.
- How the bootstrap load made the historic Intel 8008 processor possible (righto.com)
Near the end of 1972, Intel introduced their first 8-bit microprocessor, the 8008. Decades later, this processor still influences computing; you probably use an x86 processor that is a descendent of the 8008. One unusual feature of the 8008 processor is its use of a “bootstrap load” or “bootstrap capacitor”, a special capacitor circuit to improve performance. Federico Faggin, who led the development of the 8008, is the main character in this story; he invented a new way to fabricate bootstrap capacitors for the Intel 4004 and 8008 processors and says it “proved essential to the microprocessor realization” and “without [the bootstrap load], there was no microprocessor.”