19 Dec
2008
19 Dec
'08
3:30 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 18 Dec 2008 at 9:31, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Scratch that one from the list then. I'm mildly surprised. They may not have
been making them by the millions but I would have guessed they were making
enough of them to make LSI worthwhile over SSI.
60's era ones yes, but by 1978 or earlier
they were like this:
http://www.ssplprints.com/image.php?imgref=10240744
LED display, keypad input. A friend has one, still in use, but I haven't bugged
him to let me look inside it. Could have been done with an ASIC of course but
it would also have been a good candidate to have used some mask-programmed 1 or
2 chip micro such as the PPS-4/1.
A Toshiba microwave (just junked) from the same time has 4000-series
SSI CMOS and not much more. Same goes for the 1978 Amana still
sitting on my kitchen counter. I think microprocessors might not
have reached a competitive price point yet.