5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC

"Roy J. Tellason" wrote: I wish I could, but without the ref ... For what I do recall, the suggestion in the article was that this was the first use or choice of 5V for the logic supply, although I can't remember whether the 5V was a choice of whim from which other design parameters followed, or whether the 5V was an engineered outcome. Even though I found it an interesting anecdote however, there were, or would still be (IMHO) a couple of historical links necessary to show that there was a causal connection/influence to the 5V supply standard of the later DTL & TTL integrated circuit families. The earliest reference for real ICs I have is a TI product catalog from 1965. The first products mentioned are the "NEW! Series 54 TTL" (SN5400,5410,5420..5470) (4.5 to 5.5V of course). The commercial 74xx versions apparently followed a little later. Five other digital IC families are mentioned: - Series 53 Modified DTL (SN53x) (different from 'standard' DTL) (3 to 4V) - Series 51 RCTL (SN51x) (3 to 6V) - Series 51R (severe environment versions of 51) - Minuteman Series DTL (SN337A..) (produced for the Minuteman II missile) (+6V & -3V) - Low-power RTL (SN7xx..) (would become one of the 'standard' RTL families) (3V) A Fairchild catalog from 1966 presents standard 900-series DTL and some 9000 series TTL with 5V supplies. .. and I may be repeating myself on the list, or this may be more well-known than I realise, but another somewhat novel point that is apparent from the TI catalog is that the "SN" prefix on Texas Instruments ICs is short for "Semiconductor Network", an alternative phrase before "Integrated Circuit" became the more accepted phrase.