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They still make these?
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Alex Eisenhut:
https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/LM3914V-NOPB/212685

The good old LM3914 and relatives. I used to play with these in the '80s! With Radio Shack LEDs and breadboards!

But what possible use do these things have today?

Are there other surprising chips still made today?
rsjsouza:
Jameco has a very wide selection of these rarities such as its sister device LM3915 (I still have one original part bought new in the 80's). I think they even have the XR2206.

I have no idea who manufactures these, but they are indeed still available.
T3sl4co1l:
EOL priced, mind.  But yeah, while they're still around...

Another way to think of them is a 10-bit unary ADC, with freely adjustable range.  So you can use that for a certain amount of ratio conversion, or, I've used them once or twice to drive a power DAC -- ideal for something like an electronic load where most of the power is dissipated in load resistors.  By setting REF from VIN, you get an ideal constant current characteristic (minus the steps, that is!).

Also the equivalent acquisition rate is 100s kSps -- asynchronous, mind, but it's just an array of comparators, a bit worse than LM393, so a microsecond or so delay.  It's not a whole lot of ENOB (10 bits unary = a hair over 3 bits binary) but still interesting to have any result in that kind of time frame, for an ancient analog circuit.

Tim
BrokenYugo:
One of those little 3 terminal TO-92 AM radio chips is allegedly still in production, TA7642.
ataradov:

--- Quote from: T3sl4co1l on January 16, 2022, 03:46:49 am ---EOL priced, mind.

--- End quote ---
I thought so too, but if you look on TI's site directly, the prices are very reasonable. DigiKey is just as always expensive.

And the part is active according to TI, so people must buy them. It is also available as a bare die, so there may be some market for that, and the packaged versions are there just because they are easy enough to make.
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