November 16, 2025
Top Gun chip, top-tier drama
The MP944 was the 'real' first microprocessor, but it was top secret
Secret Navy chip vs Intel legend — geeks argue what 'first' really means
TLDR: A secret Navy chip, the MP944, ran F-14 jets in 1970 and may have beaten Intel’s 4004 as the first microprocessor, but was only revealed in 1998. Comments split: skeptics say it wasn’t one general chip; others love the what-if and await expert takes with links.
History got a plot twist and the comments lit up: a once-classified Navy chip, the MP944, may have beaten Intel’s 4004 to “first microprocessor.” It powered the F‑14 Tomcat’s flight brain in 1970, was only declassified in 1998, and some say it was 8x faster. Cue the textbook chaos and a full-on definition dogfight. Is this a stolen crown or just great trivia?
The skeptics rolled in first. One top quip called the claim “questionable,” arguing the MP944 wasn’t a single chip or a general, programmable “computer brain,” but a set of math chips with a traffic-cop “steering unit.” Translation: cool tech, but does it count? Meanwhile, the link brigade arrived: “Discussed a few days ago” with an HN thread, plus a crowd-pleasing explainer from “Alexander the ok” on YouTube. And then the meta moment: “I’ll wait for @kens’s take…” — summoning the resident chip oracle like it’s court.
Under the memes, there’s a spicy what‑if: if this Navy brain hadn’t been secret, would home computers have landed sooner? The MP944 had Top Gun vibes — handling brutal temperatures and hot‑swapping to a backup in a blink — but commenters keep circling one target: what does “first” even mean — first to ship, first on one chip, or first we could buy?
Key Points
- •MP944 powered the U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat’s CADC and entered service in June 1970, predating Intel’s 4004.
- •The project was classified and its details were only declassified in 1998, keeping it out of mainstream history for decades.
- •Designed by a team led by Steve Geller and Ray Holt, the MP944 was a 20-bit pipelined, parallel multi-microprocessor using MOS technology.
- •It ran at 375 kHz, executing 9,375 instructions per second, and reportedly was about eight times faster than the Intel 4004.
- •The system met military specs, operating from -55 to +125°C, with self-diagnostics and instant failover to a backup unit within 1/18 second.