Good God!
The 555 is FORTY years old?.I can remember it as the hottest new thing to hit the hobby market since the OC81 (wonder how old that is?).That was the mid to late 70's so I suppose it took a while to filter down.Also at the same time the 741 was very popular.If a project didn't have a couple of these in it it was the exception.Also remember my introduction to FET's and MosFEt's via ETI.Suppose thinking back it was the golden era of electronics and the death (very nearly) of the hobby scene for a long time as vlsi and microprocessors made repairs/modifications to kit nearly impossible.The folding of most of the electronic monthlies discouraged the take up of young kids into the hobby plus the expense, it's a wonder we still have any table top engineers left.