Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the PDP-8 minicomputer in 1963 for $18,000. This meant that customers who dreamed of owning their own computer could afford one, and could assign many of their computational chores to the small and efficient PDP-8. Scientists ordered it for their labs, engineers for their offices, and the Navy for their submarines. In refineries, the PDP-8 controlled the flow of chemicals in factories, it operated machine tools, in warehouses it kept track of inventories, and the banks installed them in their branches to handle transactions that could then be reported to the main office on a daily basis. The applications seemed endless, and the sale of the PDP-8 increased ninefold between 1965 and 1970. ARD's investment of $70,000 of venture capital became worth $228.6 million. Digital, under Kenneth Olsen's management shunned acquisitions and mergers and focused on business, staying out of community affairs, and Olsen proved to be a superb manager. Still operating out of their former woolen mill office in Maynard, Massachusetts, Digital continued to grow and in 1977, introduced a new computer, the VAX-11/780, 32 bit minicomputer which proved to be popular and versatile. By 1983, Digital became a large computer manufacturer with 78,000 employees and $4.3 billion in sales.

Following Digital's success with the PDP-8, dozens of companies entered the minicomputer field, and by 1971, at least seventy five were making minicomputers, although the largest. IBM, Sperry, and Burroughs did not.

Fairchild Camera and Instrument bought out Fairchild Semiconductor, giving Robert Noyce, Jean Hoerni and six other founders $250,000 in company stock. In 1961, Hoerni and three other founders resigned from Fairchild and established Amelco (later Teledyne Semiconductor}. Other lower level followed suit, and about fifty integrated circuit {IC} companies in Silicon Valley have their roots in Fairchild.

Noyce, General Manager of Fairchild, and Gordon Moore, a mild-mannered physicist who was one of Fairchild's founders also resigned to establish Intel (acronym for integrated circuits} in 1968. They advertised that they were specializing in memory chips and supporting capital poured in. Noyce and Moore put up $250.000 and venture capitalist Arthur Rock raised $2.5 million. Intel started in a small building in Santa Clara, and devoted its first two years to developing more sophisticated memories.

In 1970, advanced RAMs held sixty-four bits, but were insufficient to replace magnetic cores. First Fairchild, then Intel introduced a 256-bit RAM, and these began to replace magnetic cores. By the end of 1970, Intel had created the 1K RAM and now 1,024 bits of information could be held on a single chip. In 1971. Intel had $9 million in sales and about 500 employees, only to triple this in three years. In 1971, Intel introduced a revolutionary new chip, the microprocessor. Like many of these technological innovations, the importance of this chip was grossly underestimated. It became the "universal motor" of mechanical control.