On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Brent Hilpert wrote:
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.
There are earlier ones. As you might know, the SN74xx family started with
the SN740, SN741 etc. (only three digits!). After TI expanded this family
they went over to four digit part numbers and just appended a zero to the
already available parts. Thus the SN740 became the SN7400, the SN741 the
SN7410 and so on. I have a TI databook somewhere that has the old part
numbers.
Christian