Author Topic: First IC you came in contact with?  (Read 29340 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline VK5RC

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 2673
  • Country: au
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #75 on: May 18, 2015, 08:56:13 pm »
I vaguely recall it was either a LM3900 quad op amp or a LM386, the National Semiconductor Linear IC book was like a candy store.
Whoah! Watch where that landed we might need it later.
 

Offline fable

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 71
  • Country: cs
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #76 on: May 18, 2015, 09:12:26 pm »
TDA1170
 

Offline tron9000

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 423
  • Country: gb
  • Still an Electronics Lab Tech
    • My Hack-a-day project page
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #77 on: May 18, 2015, 09:26:52 pm »
it was either the 741 or the 555 - can't remember
Partsbox.io - orangise your parts!
"If you're green you can only ripen. If you're ripe you can only rot!"
 

Offline Terabyte2007

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 527
  • Country: us
  • It is purpose that created us... That defines us..
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #78 on: May 18, 2015, 09:46:25 pm »
7400, what else! :)
Eric Haney, MCSE, EE, DMC-D
Electronics Designer, Prototype Builder
 

Offline uChip

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 35
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #79 on: May 18, 2015, 11:22:18 pm »
In 1972 my dad (a Ham for many years) worked out of an office building in Minneapolis.  It happened to be the same building as the local Fairchild sales office.  Somehow my dad managed to get the Fairchild sales fellow to clean out his junk drawer.  Dad came home with tubes of RTL ICs, flip-flops, multivibrators and nor gates.  About the same time dad bought me a "counter kit" at Radio Shack.  The kit consisted of two 7474 ICs connected as a four-bit ripple counter, a photo cell connected to the clock line and pea lights on the outputs.  I assembled the kit and learned to solder.  The counter taught me about flip-flops, counter circuits and the binary number system.  I bought another 7474 and a breakout board and increased the counter to six bits.

Soon after that I wrote to every semiconductor manufacturer whose address I could find (no Google search in those days) and asked for a databook and any parts they would send me.  Fairchild sent me a databook for a calculator chip set that was almost a microprocessor.  Signetics and TI both sent me their 7400 series databooks.  A kind fellow at Dialight (if I think about it long enough I'm sure I will remember his name) sent me not only a databook, but a selection of LEDs; individual lights in various form factors, but also a 1-character 7-segment and even a 1-character 5x7 matrix display.  Later that year I met someone who worked at Memorex computers who gave me a 64-bit Memorex memory chip.

So I think the first chip I handled was actually a Fairchild 9602, but the first one that I really made work was the 7474.  I eventually did use the 9602 in a circuit as an oscillator, but it wasn't the chips that started me on my way.  It was those databooks.  I poured over them like they were the Sears & Roebuck wish-book.  I read and memorized every datasheet.  By the time I got to college I knew just about every 7400 series part by heart.

Thanks for the opportunity to wax nostalgic.  And thanks again to those generous souls who helped a young kid get started.

 

Offline LaserSteve

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1354
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #80 on: January 27, 2021, 06:42:53 pm »
3909, 555, 741, then an RF transistor.

First Kit: P-Box Goofy-Light with the galloping neons, then a short wave radio P-Box, on which to this day I remember hearing BBC and WWV for the first time.

Then some one showed me a helium neon laser, hence the user name and a career.

Modern clone: https://youtu.be/7flDWmRwYYg

Steve
« Last Edit: January 27, 2021, 06:46:04 pm by LaserSteve »
"When in doubt, check the Byte order of the Communications Protocol, By Hand, On an Oscilloscope"

Quote from a co-inventor of the PLC, whom i had the honor of working with recently.
 

Online coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10031
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #81 on: January 27, 2021, 06:58:25 pm »
Somewhat related, information about the first IC produced. http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_689592?hootPostID=fd8eeb88a279893823ef32a7e2f2b209
There is a mock up of Kilby's original lab, using his original equipment, in one of TI's buildings in Dallas. Walk down the right corridor, and there is a section of glass wall where you are looking into his lab. The research labs at the same site are called Kilby Labs in memory of him.
 
The following users thanked this post: rsjsouza

Online coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10031
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #82 on: January 27, 2021, 07:01:51 pm »
The first ICs I remember holding in my hands, and actually working with, were a bunch of Motorola MC7xx RTL devices, in about 1968. I had probably used a TV with at least one simple IC before that.
 

Offline rfclown

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 420
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #83 on: January 27, 2021, 08:05:48 pm »
I don't remember, but likely a 555. Probably purchased at Radio Shack. Likely a circuit out of a Forest Mims book.
 

Offline Syntax Error

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 584
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #84 on: January 27, 2021, 11:15:08 pm »
NE555 UA741 4011UBE 74LS138 + a TDA??? power amp IC and a sound FX generator from Texas Instruments whose number I forget. All purchased from Maplin Electronic Supplies UK - remember their space ship catalogue?
 

Online ozcar

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 344
  • Country: au
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #85 on: January 28, 2021, 06:15:13 am »
I can recall making an FM receiver using an RCA IC, maybe CA3011(?) for the IF amplifier. I don't know exactly when that was, but probably after making the electronic dice mentioned in another thread here, which used RTL ICs.

I made the dice 50+ years ago, around the same time as I invented the LED. Put enough current through a point-contact germanium diode, conveniently packaged in transparent glass, and yes, it emits light. It did not least that long, but then that gave me the opportunity to also invent the SED and NED (Smoke and Noise emitting diodes).
 
The following users thanked this post: rob.manderson

Offline rfclown

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 420
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #86 on: January 28, 2021, 06:46:05 am »
..., and yes, it emits light. ...

Reminds me of a teaser Bob Pease wrote in his Pease Poridge column. If you zener the emiter base junction of a NPN, you will measure a negative voltage on the collector. He didn't say why until a later issue. The answer was light. I didn't like the answer, so I marched to the stock room at work, grabbed an NPN that was in a can package, cut the top off, and looked at it under a microscope.... Damn! Red light.
 

Offline firehopper

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 408
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #87 on: January 28, 2021, 05:31:39 pm »
LM3909 LED flasher. This was back when LEDs were cool, flashing ones more so, especially from a 1.5v battery!
same here. purchased from radio shack.
 

Offline rob.manderson

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 100
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #88 on: January 30, 2021, 06:11:41 pm »
RCA CA3012?  Not sure of the part number any more but it was one of the RCA CA series, buried in a TV set FM strip in 1971 or thereabouts.
 

Offline faraday

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 28
  • Country: pl
    • ielektro.net
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #89 on: January 31, 2021, 05:15:37 pm »
My first IC from USSR
« Last Edit: January 31, 2021, 05:20:21 pm by faraday »
 

Offline Ian.M

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13216
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #90 on: January 31, 2021, 06:15:23 pm »
I was another ZN414 AM TRF radio builder.   The only thing that was noteworthy was the 'solderless breadboard' construction - nearly all the parts were connected by clamping their leads under brass screwcups secured by steel screws in a plank of softwood that had been boiled in paraffin wax so it wouldn't adsorb moisture.  I also had a DIL16 socket to sprung terminal breakout board, as even if you contemplated  butchering a DIP8 package IC it was obvious that it would be near-impossible to get enough screwcups round it without shorts!
 

Online nali

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 732
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #91 on: January 31, 2021, 06:25:51 pm »
UA741, in the project "Brake Light Checker" in Everyday Electronics as a 13yo back in 1977, which I fitted it to my Dad's 1965 Ford Transit. It worked but back then LEDs weren't that efficient and it was hard to see the LED on the dashboard.

Project is on p.39 of this scan https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Everyday-Electronics/70s/Everyday-Electronics-1977-01.pdf
 

Offline rob.manderson

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 100
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #92 on: February 03, 2021, 01:22:53 am »
Somewhat related, information about the first IC produced. http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_689592?hootPostID=fd8eeb88a279893823ef32a7e2f2b209
There is a mock up of Kilby's original lab, using his original equipment, in one of TI's buildings in Dallas. Walk down the right corridor, and there is a section of glass wall where you are looking into his lab. The research labs at the same site are called Kilby Labs in memory of him.

Back when TI had a presence in France (Nice) their facility was on Jack Kilby Boulevard.  It was a little strange the first time I went there and discovered an indubitably English name on a French road.  I've since learned that the French give credit where credit is due and aren't afraid of foreign names  :)  Alas, TI seem to have sold off the facility and the road is no longer named Jack Kilby (or if it is I can't find it on google earth).
 

Online coppice

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10031
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #93 on: February 03, 2021, 02:02:45 am »
Back when TI had a presence in France (Nice) their facility was on Jack Kilby Boulevard.  It was a little strange the first time I went there and discovered an indubitably English name on a French road.  I've since learned that the French give credit where credit is due and aren't afraid of foreign names  :)  Alas, TI seem to have sold off the facility and the road is no longer named Jack Kilby (or if it is I can't find it on google earth).
Its quite common in the US to find a road named after a major company in that road - e.g. TI are in TI Boulevard in Dallas. Its very unusual in Europe, but naming roads after famous people is fairly common.
 

Offline G7PSK

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 3889
  • Country: gb
  • It is hot until proved not.
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #94 on: February 05, 2021, 05:40:02 pm »
The first IC that I ever used in a circuit myself was the 555, would not supprise me if it's the most common first IC build in the world.
 

Online Gyro

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 10173
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #95 on: February 05, 2021, 05:48:42 pm »
Rather strangely, a TTL 7481 16 bit read/write memory, purchased in the playground at school.


Edit: That would have been a few weeks after my first TIL209 Red LED.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2021, 05:58:41 pm by Gyro »
Best Regards, Chris
 

Offline paul8f

  • Regular Contributor
  • *
  • Posts: 109
  • Country: ie
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #96 on: February 05, 2021, 05:55:40 pm »
Motorola 68000.

Had many a college lab on these.
 

Offline vad

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 518
  • Country: us
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #97 on: February 05, 2021, 07:28:27 pm »
My first IC from USSR
That was my first IC too (it was К155ЛА3 if I remember that correctly)
 

Offline Howardlong

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 5424
  • Country: gb
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #98 on: February 05, 2021, 09:32:01 pm »
7400

And none of that LS rubbish either.

Edit: I see I already answered this thread 5 years ago with the same answer.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2021, 09:37:15 pm by Howardlong »
 

Offline ciccio

  • Frequent Contributor
  • **
  • Posts: 659
  • Country: it
  • Designing analog audio since 1977
    • Oberon Electrophysics
Re: First IC you came in contact with?
« Reply #99 on: March 06, 2021, 09:00:18 pm »
It was a Technical High School,  from 15 to 18 years that graduated  those who, here in Italy, are called "Perito Industriale Capotecnico"  - sort of low rank engineers: the translation is " industrial Expert, chief Technician". I got a 5 years diploma in "Nuclear Energy". It is the same level of a surveyor.
Strenua Nos Exercet Inertia
I'm old enough, I don't repeat mistakes.
I always invent new ones
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf