Answer: Intel 8080

Long before personal desktop computers were appearing in offices and homes across the world, there was a very dedicated group of computer hobbyists who jumped at the chance to have a computer in their home.

Inside those early mid-1970s machines, the most popular of which–the Altair 8800–seen here, was an inexpensive and robust microprocessor: the Intel 8080. Although quite primitive by today’s standards (or even the standards that would follow in the 1980s), the 8080’s 2Mhz clock speed, enhanced instruction set (compared to its predecessors), and the role it played as the target CPU for CP/M (the first de facto standard personal computer operating system) all contributed to it becoming a popular, highly influential, and highly copied processor in the early PC market.