Motorola Hardware

What was Motorola Inc.?

Motorola Inc. was a multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. The company was divided into two independent public companies, MotorolaMobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4th, 2011. Motorola Inc. designed and sold wireless network equipment such as cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers¹.

Portable Phones

In 1973, Motorola demonstrated a prototype of the first hand-held portable telephone in the world², which later formally became the Motorola DynaTAC.

On September 21st, 1983, the U.S. Federal Communications Commision approved the Motorola DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) phone, the world's first commercial handheld cellular phone. As a result, Motorola's first DynaTAC cellular system began commercial operation in 1983 as well. During the previous 15 years, Motorola invested more than 100 million USD in cellular technology research and development³. The phone became available to consumers in 1984 and it weighed an astounding 794 grams⁴. It was priced at 3, 995 USD⁵. Note that Dr. Martin Cooper led the team that developed and brought the Motorola DynaTAC into the market.

On April 25th 1989, Motorola launched the successor to the Motorola DynaTAC, the Motorola MicroTAC personal cellular smartphone. It was then the smallest and lighest model on the market⁶. Upon its realease, it made headlines around the world⁷. It was introduced as the “MicroTAC Pocket Cellular Telephone”. It introduced an innovative new “flip” design, where the “mouthpiece” folded over the keypad, although the “mouthpiece” was actually located in the base of the phone along with the ringer. The MicroTAC set the standard of its era and became the model for modern flip phones for at least a decade after its release.⁶.

Jim Bernhart, then vice president and director of distribution for Motorola's cellular subsriber group said – “This is a new category of cellular – the personal cellular” – as well as – “we view it as the wave of the future”⁷. Clearly, Jim Bernhart was right as not only was the flip design widely accepted for at least a decade after its release, but the personal cellular phone has been around and remains so to this day.

Moving to 1991, Motorola demonstrated the world's first GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) working-prototype cellular system and phones in Hanover, Germany³.

Motorola MC6800 Line

In 1980, Motorola's next gengeration 32-bit microprocessor, the MC6800, led the wave of technologies that spurred the computing revolution in 1984, powering devices from companies such as Apple, Commodore, Atari, Sun and Hewlett Packard¹.

Furthermore in 1980, Motorola and its automotive customers developed the world's first microprocessor-based engine control, the EEC III module. The module was designed to reduce fuel consumption and emissions³.

Moving on to 1984, Motorola introduced the MC68020, the world's first true 32-bit microprocessor. The MC68020 microprocessor contained 200, 000 transistors on a 3/8” square chip³.

In 1987, Motorola brought about the MC6030 processor as the successor to the Motorola 68020. It featured 273, 000 transistors with on-chip instruction and data caches of 256 bytes each. It had an on-chip MMU (memory management unit) but it did not have a built in floating-point unit (FPU). However, the fast 68882 floating point unit chip could be used with the 68030 processor. The integration of the MMU made it more cost-effective than the 68020 (which had an external MMU) as well as allowing the 68030 to access memory one cycle faster than a 68020/68851 combination. Furthermore, the 68030 could switch between synchronous and asynchronous buses without the need of a reset. Although the 68030 lacked some of the 68020's instructions, it lowered power draw by approximately 25% and increased performance by 5% compared to the 68020. Additionally, if the 68030's additional synchronous bus interface was used, it could accelerate memory access up to 33% compared to an equally clocked 68020⁸.

The 68030 was used in many models of the Apple Macintosh II and Commodore Amiga series of personal computers as well as the NeXT Cube and the Sun Microsystems Sun 3/80 desktop workstation . Later, it came to be used in Alpha Microsystems multiuser systems and some descendants of the Atari ST line such as the Atari TT and the Atari Falcon. It was also used in Unix workstations, laser printers and the Nortel Networks DMS-100 telephone central office switch⁸.

Notable Products

In 1974, Motorola introduced the Coronary Observation Radio (COR), which allowed emergency personnel to transmist a patient's electrodiagram data to a hospital³.

In 1991, Motorola introduced its ASTRO two-way radio system in the United States of America. It was the world's first narrowband digital public safety radio system⁴.

First Moon Landing, 1969

Below, you can find a video of the First Moon Landing in 1969, where Neil Armstrong spoke his famous words through a Motorola radio transponder.