15 May
2001
15 May
'01
5:05 a.m.
The story I've heard is that Texas Instruments
wanted to
build a computer for oilfield instrumentation (hence the
name of the company). They built it by first designing a
range of SSI (Small-Scale Integration) gates as TTL chips,
then building the system with them. The chips were sold as
the 7400, 7401, and so on, and the rest is history!
As a former employee of TI, I'm familiar with the history.
TI actually started as Geophysical Services (GSI). Later
the company changed the name to Coronado, with GSI as a
subsidiary. Later some employees bought GSI from Coronado
and established themselves as a separate company. In the
early fifties ('50 or '51, I think) they changed the name
to Texas Instruments and GSI again became a subsidiary.
So the oilfield instrumentation was part of the business
at the time, but not the driving force (GSI and Semi
were separate). TI was living high on the silicon
transistor at the time and the research group was
always busy looking at ways to make transistors
smaller. Oilfield instrumentation didn't have to
be small; it usually was carried around in trucks.
The military and space business was the real driving
force in making things smaller.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net