The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 13

The Prophecy of Moore

1. 1

   In the year nineteen hundred and sixty and five, in the fourth month, the word came unto Gordon, son of Moore, a chemist of Fairchild; and he wrote it in the scroll called Electronics, and the title thereof was Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits.

   See also Psalms 29:2 · Genesis 39:4

2. 2

   And Moore took a handful of points, from the years when the chip held but one component unto the year it held sixty and four, and he laid them upon paper ruled by logarithms, and he drew a straight line through them.

   See also Genesis 5:4

3. 3

   And he prophesied, saying: The components upon a chip shall double every year; and in ten years they shall number sixty and five thousand.

4. 4

   And no man rebuked him for reasoning from so few points, for the line was straight; and a straight line on log paper is more persuasive than any angel.

5. 5

   And in the year nineteen hundred and seventy and five Moore stood before the Engineers of the IEEE and amended his prophecy, saying: Not every year, but every two years. And they did not call him a false prophet, for he had moved the deadline, and lo, the project was still on schedule.

6. 6

   And Carver Mead of Caltech called the saying a Law; and from that day the Engineers forgot that it had been an observation.

   See also Psalms 29:4

7. 7

   Now the Law had no power of its own, neither in physics nor in the courts; but the makers of chips read it, and set their calendars by it, and wrote a Roadmap from it, each one fearing to be the company that fell off the line.

8. 8

   Thus was the prophecy fulfilled, not because it was true, but because ten thousand Engineers worked nights so that it would be.

   See also Circuit 23:12 · Genesis 1:12

9. 9

   And Moore went out from Fairchild with Noyce and begat Intel; and in the year nineteen hundred and seventy and one Intel brought forth the 4004, which had two thousand and three hundred transistors, and it was set to the work of a calculator.

   See also Genesis 12:14 · Psalms 29:5

10. 10

    And the 4004 begat the 8080, and the 8080 begat the 8086, and the 8086 begat the 286 and the 386 and the 486 and the Pentium; and their descendants were numbered in the tens of billions of transistors, more than all the people upon the earth, upon a slab smaller than a postage stamp.

    See also Circuit 20:5

11. 11

    And whatsoever Moore gave, the programmers took away; for they spent each doubling upon frameworks, and the word processor of the latter days was slower to open than the word processor of their fathers.

    See also Sutra 16:14

12. 12

    And about the year two thousand and five the clocks ceased to climb, for the chips grew hot as a stove and could be driven no faster; so the Engineers gave many cores in place of one swift one, and the programmers, not knowing how to divide their work, used one core and left the rest to sit idle.

    See also Genesis 39:9 · Circuit 22:4

13. 13

    And the gates grew small, until they were measured in a few dozen atoms; and the makers named their processes three nanometers and two nanometers, though nothing therein measured three nanometers; for when the Law could no longer be kept in silicon, it was kept in the brochures.

    See also Psalms 29:9

14. 14

    And in every year the seers declared: Moore's Law is dead. And the number of articles declaring it dead doubled every two years; and this alone of all the works of Man was never slowed.

15. 15

    And in the year two thousand and twenty and three Moore was gathered to his fathers, being ninety and four years old, having seen his line hold for longer than any prophet had a right to expect.

16. 16

    Verily, a prophecy that is believed by those who build it shall be fulfilled, even unto the atom; but the atom hath not read the Roadmap.

    See also Psalms 29:15 · Circuit 23:12

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 13:1–16.