1953 M. V. Wilkes & J. B. Stringer in Proc. Cambr. Philos. Soc. 49 230 The operation called for by a single machine order can be broken down into a sequence of more elementary operations... These elementary operations will be referred to as micro-operations. Basic machine operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc., are thought of as being made up of a micro-programme of micro-operations, each micro-operation being called for by a micro-order.

1962 H. D. Huskey & G. A. Korn Computer Handbk. xvi. 32 Once a given set of instructions has been designed into the machine by the wiring of a microprogram plugboard, the machine may be used as a stored-program computer in the normal fashion.

1971 New Scientist 7 Jan. 27/1 This memory can hold up to 1024 words of microprogram which can be changed easily and inexpensively and tailored exactly to suit individual requirements.

1983 Sci. Amer. Mar. 14/1 He [sc. David A. Patterson] spent the fall of 1979..developing techniques for the design of microprograms.

1993 R. J. Pond Introd. Engin. Technol. (ed. 2) ix. 246 Programs etched into ROM are called microprograms.

1957 Jrnl. Assoc. Computing Machinery 4 161 The arithmetic floating point operations of addition, subtraction and multiplication can be micro-programmed with about 70 microorders.

1975 Sci. Amer. May 36/3 Some multichip machines have the advantage that they can be ‘microprogrammed’ by the user.

1983 Sci. Amer. Mar. 36/2 Microprogramming a computer is not the same as programming a microcomputer.

1995 Amer. Scientist Mar. 127/1 By 1980 virtually all computers were microprogrammed.