One role for the government.....................

      These massive and predictable sources of demand from the government caused the price of each microchip to fall rapidly.  The first prototype chip for the Apollo Guidance Computer cost $1,000.  By the time they were being put into regular production, each cost $20.  The average price for each microchip in the Minuteman missile was $50 in 1962; by 1968 it was $2.  Thus was launched the market for putting microchips in devices for ordinary consumers.

-Walter Isaacson, The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created The Digital Revolution