COSMAC: The Long, True, and Never-ending Story of the World’s First CMOS Microprocessors, Part 1

<img width="300" height="261" src="https://www.eejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Tic-Tac-Toe-300x261.jpg" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" alt="" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 5px; clear:both;max-width: 100%;" link_thumbnail="" decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" srcset="https://www.eejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Tic-Tac-Toe-300x261.jpg 300w, https://www.eejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Tic-Tac-Toe-768x668.jpg 768w, https://www.eejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Tic-Tac-Toe.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px" />RCA announced the world’s first CMOS microprocessor, the 8-bit CDP1801, in early 1975 and the first single-chip CMOS microprocessor, the CDP1802, in February 1976. Fifty years later, the CDP1802 is still available, still in production, and has been used as the core of many embedded designs including a few spacecraft. Both the CDP1801 and CDP1802 &#8230; <a href="https://www.eejournal.com/article/cosmac-the-long-true-and-never-ending-story-of-the-worlds-first-cmos-microprocessors-part-1/" class="more-link">Read More &#8594;<span class="screen-reader-text"> "COSMAC: The Long, True, and Never-ending Story of the World’s First CMOS Microprocessors, Part 1"</span></a>