Research Book · HAN University of Applied Sciences

A History of
Embedded Systems
Engineering

From Wiener's feedback loops and Apollo's hand-woven ROM to the chip in your pocket — tracing how a discipline was born.

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1948 — Cybernetics 1966 — Apollo AGC 1971 — Intel 4004 1980 — Intel 8051 1985 — ARM1 2005 — Arduino 2024 — Now Wiener Hamilton Faggin Wharton Wilson/Furber Banzi et al. You
80+
years of history covered
12
chapters
98
cited sources
2,300
transistors in the first microprocessor (1971)

Chapters

12 chapters · from 1940s to present
01
Cybernetics, Feedback, and Wartime Control
1930s – 1950s
02
Apollo and the First Real Embedded Computer
1961 – 1972
03
The Microprocessor Changes Everything
1971 – 1975
04
The Microcontroller and the Factory Floor
1968 – 1980
05
Real-Time Operating Systems and When Software Kills
1980s
06
ARM, RISC, and the Mobile Revolution
1983 – 1999
07
Connected Devices and the Birth of IoT
1999 – 2010
08
The Maker Movement Democratises Embedded
2005 – 2015
09
Modern ESE: Safety, Security, AI at the Edge
2016 – present
10
How Embedded Systems Engineering Is Taught
1970s – present
11
Open Source Hardware and the Commons
1992 – present
12
What Comes Next: Beyond Silicon, Beyond Moore
2024 – ?
"

We have decided to call the entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal, by the name Cybernetics — which we form from the Greek word for steersman.

— Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, 1948 · The idea that started it all
About this project

A Free Project at HAN University

This book is a research project undertaken as part of the Free Project module in the Embedded Systems Engineering programme at HAN University of Applied Sciences, Arnhem. The goal was to research and document the history of ESE as a discipline — not just the technology, but the people, the failures, the institutions, and the ideas that shaped what embedded engineering is today.

The project covers roughly 80 years of history across 12 chapters, drawing on 98 sources including primary texts, IEEE papers, institutional archives, and oral histories.

Mohammed Alkhomaish · Student ID 2158363
Embedded Systems Engineering · HAN University of Applied Sciences
LT Coach: Danielle van den Hoogen · 2026–2027
embeddedsystemsengineering.world
ESE 1940 → now

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