EEVblog #867 - The Search For The First TTL Chip

[linux-works]

Hell, I not only have some DTL and RTL stuff like Fairchild 914 and 923's (JK flip flops) I have designed with them. I even designed an analog computer board with 2n107s and 741's for money.

the first chips I had to play with, as a kid, were DTL dips that my older brother gave me.  846 and 848 or something like that; some NAND and some flip flops.  I didn't get actual ttl chips to play with until years later, when I hit my teen years

I will have to search for those old chips.  I think I still have them after all these years.  I would not have thrown them away, that much I know.

[snoopy]

When is Silicon Chip going to archive all of the copies of ETI, EA onto DVD ? Their excuse of Copyright is pretty lame if you consider that 25 years takes you back to 1990 so anything before that should be made available to the public without any legal repercussions. Maybe they can offer Vol 2 in addition to their current archive DVD of RT&H.

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Shop/5/2950

cheers

[SL4P]

or the cost-benefit of scanning, cataloging and publishing that extra content may just 'not be viable'.

[Kjelt]

were these 74 chips from the start on always in plastick packages, never in ceramic ?
I actually used mainly the 4000 cmos series and I have a lot of old ones in those great ceramic packages.

[Fungus]

Wouldn't then the copyright of the subject matter contained within the magazine still be active for 70 years from the death of the author?

If the magazine paid people for articles they might own the copyright, not the authors.

Who knows? 

[coppice]

were these 74 chips from the start on always in plastick packages, never in ceramic ?
I actually used mainly the 4000 cmos series and I have a lot of old ones in those great ceramic packages.

Early on there were 74xx parts in both ceramic and plastic packages. There were also 64xx parts with an intermediate, industrial type of temperature range, which were all ceramic packaged parts. They disappeared pretty quickly. I don't think anything rated for >70C came in a plastic package in those days.

SN54xx parts are not actually mil spec. They are just mil temperature range. The real military and space qualified parts had longer names with 54xx buried somewhere in the middle. There were two or three levels of qualification, manned space flight being the highest. It so long since I touched this stuff I can't remember all the details.

[Howardlong]

Hell, I not only have some DTL and RTL stuff like Fairchild 914 and 923's (JK flip flops) I have designed with them. I even designed an analog computer board with 2n107s and 741's for money.

the first chips I had to play with, as a kid, were DTL dips that my older brother gave me.  846 and 848 or something like that; some NAND and some flip flops.  I didn't get actual ttl chips to play with until years later, when I hit my teen years

I will have to search for those old chips.  I think I still have them after all these years.  I would not have thrown them away, that much I know.

I used to mix and match the DTL chips with TTL, as I remember they were compatible with each other in terms of inputs and outputs, but I can't remember if they were pin compatible.

A couple of years ago I was debugging a bit of old aviation DME equipment from the mid 70s, that had some 900 series RTL in it. I have to say that it was a project I never completed: despite having the service manuals for it, the problem was intermittent and I didn't really gave the right test equipment. DME is reasonably high power half duplex L band stuff, the RTL PLL wasn't consistently locking, but without the right TE (or access to a real DME ground segment) and as it's a dynamic bidirectional system, it was pretty hard to debug and test. One day...

[lapm]

Just love wayback video.. Sometimes you learn something new like those neontube logics, newer before even heard of such things... 

[CatalinaWOW]

With enough work you could do a two layer wayback.  I remember an article from the 1960s called the girl detector, intended for frat houses and the like.  It generated a wolf whistle when presented with the appropriate gender.  I think it was in the US magazine Popular Electronics, and it was a transistorized update of a much earlier vacuum tube circuit.  The fundamental idea wouldn't work today.  It was an infrared sensor that detected the temperature difference between someone wearing a skirt and trousers, so wouldn't be a reliable sexer today.

[Svuppe]

Why talk about TTL from the 60's, when CMOS was available in the 50's
No, of course they weren't, but what was this "date code" used for then? It obviously isn't a CMOS package from 1956.

[coppice]

Why talk about TTL from the 60's, when CMOS was available in the 50's
No, of course they weren't, but what was this "date code" used for then? It obviously isn't a CMOS package from 1956.

Notice the National Semiconductors logo? They produced a series of CMOS devices beginning MM56xx. Most were pin to pin replacements for CD40xx parts, so many were  dual labelled.

[TinkerFan]

  For the Wayback Wednesday.
For me as a "young player", it is really interesting to see, what was going on, when my father/grandfather was playing with electronics...

[Lovely_Santa]

For the Wayback Wednesday.
For me as a "young player", it is really interesting to see, what was going on, when my father/grandfather was playing with electronics...

I am 20 years old now, still student at the university and I am very happy to see this kind of stuff, very interesting how things work and evolve trough the years
So thumbs up for more video's like this!

[BravoV]

Are these TTL chip ?

Gold plated pins , dual JK Flip-Flop (MC890P) and Hex Inverter (MC889P), found in my Tektronix 2901 Time Mark Generator  -> (Teardown)

[rolycat]

Are these TTL chip ?

Gold plated pins , dual JK Flip-Flop (MC890P) and Hex Inverter (MC889P), found in my Tektronix 2901 Time Mark Generator 

I believe they are RTL (Resistor-Transistor Logic) chips, a predecessor to TTL which was introduced in the early sixties.

More info on the MC800 series here.

[coppice]

Are these TTL chip ?

Gold plated pins , dual JK Flip-Flop (MC890P) and Hex Inverter (MC889P), found in my Tektronix 2901 Time Mark Generator  -> (Teardown)

Those are Motorola's RTL family. The MC7xx, MC8xx and MC9xx series parts were the same devices in three different temperature options. They were the first logic devices I used, and in about the same year yours are date stamped.

[Howardlong]

To add (possibly confusion) note that not all MC8xx are RTL, there's a gap around 830-850 which are DTL.

[SeanB]

Why talk about TTL from the 60's, when CMOS was available in the 50's
No, of course they weren't, but what was this "date code" used for then? It obviously isn't a CMOS package from 1956.

Week 5 of likely 1980, as it has the Nat semi logo they were using around then. This is the "cheap" cerdip package, made using a Kovar leadframe from the plastic DIP circuits, but with a ceramic base and lid, sealed with a fired cement after bonding. The more expensive versions ( the aerospace rated, these are just extended industrial parts) used a gold fired ceramic leadframe with side brazed leads. Those were expensive, and the testing on them made them even more so.

[WattSekunde]

I found these old RTL Logic Blocks called Norbit-S from Valvo. They are looking like huge DIL chips. I have to ask my dad but I guess they are from the late 60's.

The "normal" sized Siemens FZH101 is from 1974.

[MLXXXp]

were these 74 chips from the start on always in plastick packages, never in ceramic ?

From my collection (none are extremely old):

Attached is a photo of a Signetics 74164, with a date code from 1973, in a ceramic DIP (along with a ceramic LM555).

Also attached are photos of 5400 parts in a TO-86 ceramic flatpak (surface mount) package, along with the plastic carriers that they were shipped in. Two are a 5400 and I believe the other is a military labelled 5450 expandable dual 2-wide 2-input and-or-invert gate.

[snoopy]

When is Silicon Chip going to archive all of the copies of ETI, EA onto DVD ? Their excuse of Copyright is pretty lame if you consider that 25 years takes you back to 1990 so anything before that should be made available to the public without any legal repercussions. Maybe they can offer Vol 2 in addition to their current archive DVD of RT&H.

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Shop/5/2950

cheers

Why?

Are you saying that reproducing in computer readable form on a DVD or memory device, the content of the magazine as originally published in a printed magazine, constitutes the  reproduction of a printed edition? From my limited research the original publisher holds copyright of the printed edition for 25 years. Which would have expired on anything published prior to 1990. Wouldn't then the copyright of the subject matter contained within the magazine still be active for 70 years from the death of the author? Unless the author died prior to 1955. Which was 50 years prior to the copyright period being extended to 70 years (from 50 years) in 2005.

Of course i'm not a lawyer. I would assume Silicon Chip would have a good understanding of copyright law in Australia.

So how do they get away with selling their existing DVD which covers everything up to and including Radio Television and Hobbies before it changed name to Electronics Australia which was around 1967 or there abouts ?

cheers

[timb]

With enough work you could do a two layer wayback.  I remember an article from the 1960s called the girl detector, intended for frat houses and the like.  It generated a wolf whistle when presented with the appropriate gender.  I think it was in the US magazine Popular Electronics, and it was a transistorized update of a much earlier vacuum tube circuit.  The fundamental idea wouldn't work today.  It was an infrared sensor that detected the temperature difference between someone wearing a skirt and trousers, so wouldn't be a reliable sexer today.

Popular Electronics January, 1964 (Starts on Page 33)

It was part of the "Carl and Jerry Adventure in Electronics" series. They used a thermistor, not an IR sensor. (I don't think IR was even commercially available yet in '64, was it? LEDs would have been in their infancy; if I recall right, HP Labs was having major problems with their production for several years. They didn't really get the process down until '69-70.)

Also, the American Radio History site has a large archive of old electronics, radio, TV and computer rags in PDF form. You can find some neat projects in them.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm

[CatalinaWOW]

With enough work you could do a two layer wayback.  I remember an article from the 1960s called the girl detector, intended for frat houses and the like.  It generated a wolf whistle when presented with the appropriate gender.  I think it was in the US magazine Popular Electronics, and it was a transistorized update of a much earlier vacuum tube circuit.  The fundamental idea wouldn't work today.  It was an infrared sensor that detected the temperature difference between someone wearing a skirt and trousers, so wouldn't be a reliable sexer today.

Popular Electronics January, 1964 (Starts on Page 33)

It was part of the "Carl and Jerry Adventure in Electronics" series. They used a thermistor, not an IR sensor. (I don't think IR was even commercially available yet in '64, was it? LEDs would have been in their infancy; if I recall right, HP Labs was having major problems with their production for several years. They didn't really get the process down until '69-70.)

Also, the American Radio History site has a large archive of old electronics, radio, TV and computer rags in PDF form. You can find some neat projects in them.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm

That is the article I was talking about.  Thanks for digging it up.   And the thermistor was the IR sensor.  Now we are just arguing about specs like speed and sensitivity.  Somebody thirty years from now will be arguing that IR sensors (resistive bolometers) weren't available much before 2005.

[coppice]

Also attached are photos of 5400 parts in a TO-86 ceramic flatpak (surface mount) package, along with the plastic carriers that they were shipped in.

Although a number of defence contractors eventually formed the legs of flatpack devices, and surface mounted them, they were not intended to be surface mount devices.

[Kjelt]

attached are photos of 5400 parts in a TO-86 ceramic flatpak (surface mount) package, along with the plastic carriers that they were shipped in. 

Thanks for sharing, very interesting, never knew/saw that they were packaged individually. Are those plastick carriers ESD safe? They don't look like it.