Although for most generations alive today the era of microcontrollers (MCU) feels like it starts somewhere with the Intel 8051 and AVR MCUs, the history of these self-contained computing marvels that are now found just about anywhere begins long before those were even conceptualized. In a recent article titled Tiny Computers From Texas, [Babbage] goes through this early history of what would ultimately become such an integral part of daily life.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/01/12/the-early-history-of-the-microcontroller-it-came-from-texas/