On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:35:40 -0500, you wrote:

>I'm kinda curious: did UART ICs come before microprocessors? If I
>remember correctly the first microprocessor (actually a microcontroller,
>I'd guess) was the 4004 in 1971 (or was it 72?). It seems to me as
>thought a decent, simple microprocessor could be made with fewer
>transistors than a full UART chip.
I don't think so, remember they didn't have fifos, internal baudrate
gens  etc. in those days... All you need is a shiftreg, some clock
dividers and a pretty simple state machine - rather less than even a
4004. I'm sure you could do it with less than a dozen 74TTLs

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