TTL HEX LED driver chip

Heh heh. This reminded me of a project I did in a hardware interfacing class a very long time ago. The project was to interface two 7 segment displays to a single 8 bit I/O port - The design specs required that the displays should be able to show hex characters, and be turned off - It was clear that the *intent* of the assignment was that we were supposed to be learning about scanning displays. My lecturer was very surprised when I turned in a PCB with two 7 segment displays, and two 9374 chips. I tied the data lines together, and brought the individual latch and Ripple Blanking lines out - two port writes were all that was required to display anything - and there was none of that messy scanning required to keep the display updated. Using the ripple blanking inputs, allowed me to turn off each display individually. I got an A, and the assignment sheet was updated to prevent the solution in the future!! Doug Jackson