The general purpose processing unit that is the brains of each and every one of our computer systems is responsible for everything we take for granted. The fact that you can use a single tiny electronic device to perform multipitudes of tasks allows us to have multipurpose devices like smartphones, desktop workstations, game consoles, and the cloud! It is probably a technology that is just as important and impactful as the written word. It all started not too long ago.

This article is still being written. Check back later for the full history of the modern CPU, because there are so very many kinds of modern CPU...