1940 to 1949: Computing During World War II and the Postwar Era - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 52

Japanese Technology and Intel's First Chip
An important business event occurred in Japan in 1945 that in later
decades would cause Intel to become the world's largest manufac-
turer of computer chips. Although this had no impact on World War
II, it was extremely important for the later computer industry and is
not widely known.
In 1945, a company called the Nippon Calculating Machine
Corporation was founded to build calculators. Later, it changed its
name to Busicom. In the 1960s, Busicom patented the first micro-
processor and entered into an agreement with Intel to manufacture
it. (Intel was founded in 1968.)
An Intel engineer named Ted Hoff improved on the original
Busicom design, and Intel's first microcomputer, produced in 1971,
was the Intel 4004 microprocessor, which was based on the
Busicom patents that were shared with Intel. It is not widely known
in the United States that Intel's entry into the microprocessor field
was due to gaining access to Japanese patents.
During World War II, the Japanese navy, as most other navies also did, deve-
loped an analog computing device for use on submarines to calculate their aiming
points. Incidentally, the Japanese long lance torpedo was among the most effect-
ive at the start of World War II. It had a longer range and was more reliable than
Allied torpedoes.
Japan's main development efforts in computers will be discussed in future dec-
ades, when the high-quality levels of Japanese companies enabled them to pull
ahead in products such as LCD screens, disk drives, and other computer peripher-
als. Software in Japan also benefited from the contributions of the Americans W.
Edwards Deming and J. W. Juran during the postwar years.
Japan developed several cryptographic machines for encoding naval and mil-
itary messages. These were mechanical devices and not computers. One Japanese
device resembled the German Enigma machine (Japan had acquired Enigma ma-
chines in 1937).
But another Japanese coding machine was indigenous and used electrical step
switches instead of the rotors used by the Enigma devices. This code machine was
called “Purple” by Allied intelligence personnel, and it was decrypted by the Un-