Random conversation in Matt McGrath’s office a couple years ago after reading Nick Chrisman’s book we all knew

TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) development starts at the USAF’s Wright-Patterson AFB

• TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) development starts at the USAF’s Wright-Patterson AFB

• Missile guidance system
• Basic premise is any geographic location on Earth is uniquely identified by the vertical contours of the surrounding terrain
• Reference contour data stored in guidance system computer
• First digital terrain model
• First used with SLAM (Project Pluto) – nuclear ramjet powered supersonic low altitude cruise missile

Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) and Robert Noyce (Fairchild) co-invent the first integrated circuit

• Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) and Robert Noyce (Fairchild) co-invent the first integrated circuit

• Kilby’s approach was the solid circuit with flying leads (not monolithic, but the first step)
• Noyce’s approach was the planar process (all interconnects on the surface)
• Huge revolution, allowed drastic reduction on size and component count for computers