18 Dec
2005
18 Dec
'05
2:32 p.m.
Subject: Re: Fw: Deck of IBM PLAYING CARDS GOES FOR $325
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:22:58 -0800
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
On 12/17/2005 at 10:37 PM woodelf wrote:
sites.
I can still find 74h, 74F, 74S, 74hct, 74c, 74hc nevermining what I
have on hand.
It was interesting, useful and a PAIN. It sometimes made a huge differnce
if you subbed a S04 where there was an LS04.
Allison
I downloaded some motorola application notes from
bitsavers.
Wow they sure had a lot of different types of TTL. I wonder how only
the 74xx became the only TTL used today?
I think the short answer is "second sources"--you had at least 4 big
players, TI, National, Moto and Fairchild all producing 7400-series logic.
Some of the earlier TTL (Moto 400/500-series) had mid-line (pins 4 and10)
power supplies, which turned out to be not as convienient for PCB layout.
And, although it's largely forgotten, 7400 TTL shares a fair number of
pinouts with the older DTL circuits.
By the time LSTTL was out, everyone had pretty much standardized on the
74xx line.
18 Dec
18 Dec
7:21 p.m.
Allison wrote:
I can still find 74h, 74F, 74S, 74hct, 74c, 74hc
nevermining what I
have on hand.
It was interesting, useful and a PAIN. It sometimes made a huge differnce
if you subbed a S04 where there was an LS04.
Stiill 74xx family of stuff! Well almost now that CMOS has taken over,
we have a whole lot
of custom tristate buffers and latches but not much more. Where do you
find High Threshold Logic
for Industrial Applications. What about your aging aircraft like the SST
that used 70's componernts?
Allison
7:33 p.m.
Stiill 74xx family of stuff! Well almost now that
CMOS has taken over,
we have a whole lot
of custom tristate buffers and latches but not much more. Where do you
find High Threshold Logic
for Industrial Applications.
HTL was never popular at all, and died when PLCs took over. I would
venture to say that HTL is the hardest family of logic to find parts
for. I have found more MECL I than HTL.
What about your aging aircraft like the SST
that used 70's componernts?
There are specialty dealers that buy up old surplus for just this
reason. The aircraft people will pay HUGE amounts to get the correctly
rated parts, and these guys know it.
I just found a whole box of new TI high rel gold surface mount TTL
(something boring like a latch), still sealed. It is actually worth a
pretty good sum, being that the mil spec gold surface mount packages are
very hard to find. If they were plain old 74xx TTL, they would be worth 17
cents a pound.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
7:47 p.m.
On 12/18/05, William Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org> wrote:
In my business we call them the "parts mafia." It can be cheaper to
redesign a board than to buy the parts... so long as you know what
the board is doing.
What about
your aging aircraft like the SST
that used 70's componernts?
There are specialty dealers that buy up old surplus for just this
reason. The aircraft people will pay HUGE amounts to get the correctly
rated parts, and these guys know it.
8:27 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
I just found a whole box of new TI high rel gold
surface mount TTL
(something boring like a latch), still sealed. It is actually worth a
pretty good sum, being that the mil spec gold surface mount packages are
very hard to find. If they were plain old 74xx TTL, they would be worth 17
cents a pound.
Well I need a FEW pounds of TTL ... I'll give you a $10.00 for
the 7412's
and 7414's and 7470's. Now if I could get the sockets and PCB boards
made just as cheep.
Oh yah better throw in a few 7438's too.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
7412 OC 3 input nands
7414 Hex Schmitt trigger
7470 Gated J/K F/F
7438 OC 2 input nand buffer
Well I will not need a heat in my apartment next year -- just power up a
few lb's of ttl.
Are they suppose to glow red .... :)
And what else do you have for 17 cents a lb ...
Reads the fine print ... offer good only untill Dec 31, 1972
Blah
The chips I picked are set of chips that a whole computer control and
data path could be constructed
from. Has anybody made a computer with such a small range of components?
( I know of the Apollo
guideance computer already)
19 Dec
19 Dec
2:40 a.m.
And what else do you have for 17 cents a lb ...
17 cents a pound is what I last got for mixed scrap plastic DIPs from the
gold man.
Has anybody made a computer with such a small range of
components?
( I know of the Apollo
guideance computer already)
The original run of Crays (Cray-1, -1M and 1S) were made from a very small
number of types. I think the original was made with just four different
chips in very large numbers: some simple gates, some more simple gates, a
flipflop, and a memory cell.
Pretty dumb idea, but Cray often "had to be different". I think the
original machines could have benefitted by using a wider range of parts
(like MECL III) - certainly the chip count would have gone way down.
William Donzelli
aw288 at Osfn.org
3:58 a.m.
On 12/18/2005 at 9:40 PM William Donzelli wrote:
Pretty dumb idea, but Cray often "had to be
different". I think the
original machines could have benefitted by using a wider range of parts
(like MECL III) - certainly the chip count would have gone way down.
I recall Neil Lincoln talking about the "box of Chiclets" approach to
designing the Cyber 205--something like only 11 or 13 different IC types.
FWIW, I don't know how many types the finished product had, but a small
number of different types of packages was definitely in the air those
days...
On the opposite extreme, I can remember looking at the various databooks
and seeing something like a SN74LS302985 "13-bit LFSR with parity and
tristate complemented outputs with bottle opener" and thinking it would
just be PERFECT for what I had in mind--if only there were a second source
or three. Then, as now, it wasn't uncommon to "pre announce" a chip that
never made it into production.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:15 a.m.
I recall Neil
Lincoln talking about the "box of Chiclets" approach to
designing the
Cyber 205--something like only 11 or 13 different IC types.
FWIW, I don't know how many types the finished product had, but a small
number of different types of packages was definitely in the air those
days... On the opposite extreme, I can remember looking at the
various databooks
and seeing something like a SN74LS302985 "13-bit LFSR with parity and
tristate complemented outputs with bottle opener" and thinking it would
just be PERFECT for what I had in mind--if only there were a second source
or three. Then, as now, it wasn't uncommon to "pre announce" a chip that
never made it into production.
Quite a lot of the really oddball parts that get into databooks are
probably customer specific - at least this is how the transistor industry
was. A customer would request a small tweak of a standard part - maybe
even so small that the fab process did not even change, but the tests did
- and BANG, a new number was registered. The tube guys played this game as
well.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
4:37 a.m.
On 12/18/2005 at 11:15 PM William Donzelli wrote:
I seem to recall that the 205 was indeed made of a
relative handful of
chip types, based off a standard simple gate array. I do not know who
fabbed the things.
I believe it may have been Fairchild. IIRC, the "proof of concept" was a
6400 CPU made out of the things at ADL. I can't recall how many PCBs were
involved, but I seem to recall being impressed at the relatively low board
count.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:37 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
The original run of Crays (Cray-1, -1M and 1S) were
made from a very small
number of types. I think the original was made with just four different
chips in very large numbers: some simple gates, some more simple gates, a
flipflop, and a memory cell.
Pretty dumb idea, but Cray often "had to be different". I think the
original machines could have benefitted by using a wider range of parts
(like MECL III) - certainly the chip count would have gone way down.
I recall reading that the Cray-1 used balanced logic circuits, in which
a complementary pair of a signal and its complement were always
generated, and each fed a terminated transmission line. The idea was
that the machine drew essentially constant current regardless of its
logic state. Perhaps this placed constraints on the chips that could be
used, as most MSI functions are not implemented in such a perfectly
symmetric fashion.
--Bill
8:18 a.m.
On 12/18/2005 at 10:37 PM William Maddox wrote:
I recall reading that the Cray-1 used balanced logic
circuits, in which
a complementary pair of a signal and its complement were always
generated, and each fed a terminated transmission line. The idea was
that the machine drew essentially constant current regardless of its
logic state. Perhaps this placed constraints on the chips that could be
used, as most MSI functions are not implemented in such a perfectly
symmetric fashion.
LVDS uses the same scheme of being differential throughout and even ECL
uses differential outputs (even if only one of them is actually brought out
to a pin). CML goes back to the 60's.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:49 p.m.
I recall reading that the Cray-1 used balanced logic
circuits, in which
a complementary pair of a signal and its complement were always
generated, and each fed a terminated transmission line. The idea was
that the machine drew essentially constant current regardless of its
logic state. Perhaps this placed constraints on the chips that could be
used, as most MSI functions are not implemented in such a perfectly
symmetric fashion.
Complementary outputs are basically a bonus with ECL, due to the circuit
design. In the standard families, often only one output is brought out on
complex functions, but on most of the simple functions (gates, muxes,
etc.) both a brought out. Damn handy, actually. If one is not needed, it
is simply terminated right there on the spot.
Older ECL "backplanes" used differential twisted pair, like the early
Crays. For connections on the same board, however, differential
transmission lines are a waste of resources - standard stripline (a well
defined trace over a power plane or two) works just fine. For short runs,
generally less than three inches for 100K speeds, you could even get away
without using a transmission line, as any reflections would get drowned
out by the relatively long rise and fall times.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
18 Dec
18 Dec
9:10 p.m.
On Sunday 18 December 2005 02:21 pm, woodelf wrote:
Allison wrote:
HTL? I seem to remember that being in the ECG cross-reference / replacement
guide... :-)
Want to get even more obscure? I worked on some machinery a while back (QUITE
a while back :-) that used some logic parts made by Amperex that they called
"Norbits" -- these things were HUGE compared to normal DIPs and all of them
had an odd number of pins, typically 17 though some had other numbers. I
might even still have some data on those around someplace.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
I can still find 74h, 74F, 74S, 74hct, 74c, 74hc
nevermining what I
have on hand.
It was interesting, useful and a PAIN. It sometimes made a huge differnce
if you subbed a S04 where there was an LS04.
Stiill 74xx family of stuff! Well almost now that CMOS has taken over,
we have a whole lot of custom tristate buffers and latches but not much
more. Where do you find High Threshold Logic for Industrial Applications.
What about your aging aircraft like the SST that used 70's componernts? 
19 Dec
19 Dec
9:17 a.m.
New subject: Norbits (was Deck of IBM PLAYING CARDS GOES FOR $325)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
snip---
Want to get even more obscure? I worked on some machinery a while
back (QUITE
a while back :-) that used some logic parts made by Amperex that
they called
"Norbits" -- these things were HUGE compared to normal DIPs and all
of them
had an odd number of pins, typically 17 though some had other
numbers. I
might even still have some data on those around someplace.
IIRC Norbits were a Philips idea - blocks of epoxy in various colours
depending on the implemented logical function - which was implemented
internally with discretes. Aimed at the market that uses PLCs these
days - a good idea at the time, but not widely used.
DaveB, NZ
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.1/206 - Release Date: 16/12/2005
1:27 p.m.
On 12/18/05, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote:
Want to get even more obscure? I worked on some
machinery a while back (QUITE
a while back :-) that used some logic parts made by Amperex that they called
"Norbits"
http://www.akh.se/tubes/pix/norbits.jpg
5:13 p.m.
On 12/19/2005 at 1:27 PM Ethan Dicks wrote:
Always made me wonder why manufacturers didn't color-code (like resistors)
IC's. It'd certainly be a lot easier to see.
--Chuck
6:02 p.m.
On Monday 19 December 2005 12:13 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 12/19/2005 at 1:27 PM Ethan Dicks wrote:
Always made me wonder why manufacturers didn't color-code (like resistors)
IC's. It'd certainly be a lot easier to see.
--Chuck
Costs more.
Ever wonder why almost all car batteries sold these days have cases that are
black? It's because the material is almost all recycled plastic, and that's
the easiest color to end up with...
I remember watching those ads in the back of Popular Electronics and other
magazines, way back when, where a "7400" chip started out at several
dollars, and then just kept on going down. 50 cents! Lower! :-)
There was a point later on where I found out what "commodity market" meant,
and which made me thankful for the fact that I could now get my hands on a
whole lot of hardware that I'd not otherwise ever be able to even get close
to. This sort of economic pressure doesn't allow for such niceties as color
coding, unfortunately, it would make that manufacturer non-competetive.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
6:12 p.m.
Costs more.
Sprague made sky blue TTL DIPs. Ick!
Ever wonder why almost all car batteries sold these
days have cases that are
black? It's because the material is almost all recycled plastic, and that's
the easiest color to end up with...
This also explains why in the US electrical code, the neutral wire is
white. Think about it.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
6:28 p.m.
On 12/19/2005 at 1:02 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Costs more.
Probably the reason, though you can sometimes find IC's that had color
bands on the BOTTOM. All I'm talking about is paint, not epoxy or
plastic.I'd have to go look at my parts bins to discover who it was, but
heck, resistors are cheap; some diodes are color-coded.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:38 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 12/19/2005 at 1:02 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Not sure that it's purely the cost of colour ink versus text. An IC typically
has extra information other than the basic part - manufacturer logo, family,
date code etc. which it would be hard to colour code completely. And if you're
having to print some of the data as plain text, it probably makes sense to do
it all that way.
Costs more.
Probably the reason All I'm talking about is paint
that's OK until it falls off :-)
cheers
Jules
6:35 p.m.
On 12/19/2005 at 1:02 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Ever wonder why almost all car batteries sold these
days have cases that
are black? It's because the material is almost all recycled plastic, and
that's the easiest color to end up with...
My recollection goes back long before recycling and PVC and auto battery
cases were always black, with very few exceptions. Basically a composition
(phenolic maybe?) tub with three cells embedded in pitch and connected
together. In the very old days, some battery shops could actually replace
an individual bad cell.
OTOH, sealed gel-cell cases seem to be mostly black or blue (or some shade
in between).
Cheers,
Chuck
6:47 p.m.
"Chuck Guzis" wrote:
My recollection goes back long before recycling and PVC and auto battery
cases were always black, with very few exceptions.
except when they were glass :-) the glass ones where clear.
I've never seen the top or 'guts', but I have seen a few glass battery
cases recently.
-brad
20 Dec
20 Dec
12:29 a.m.
Always made me
wonder why manufacturers didn't color-code (like resistors)
IC's. It'd certainly be a lot easier to see.
--Chuck
Costs more.
Ever wonder why almost all car batteries sold these days have cases that are
black? It's because the material is almost all recycled plastic, and that's
the easiest color to end up with...
1:54 a.m.
On 12/20/2005 at 12:29 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
Then why are many opto-isolators in white DIL pacakges,
resistor networks
in blue or brown plastic DIL packages, etc?
I can't imagine the packaging for ICs being made from recycled
anything--I'd think that there would be too many unpredictable impurities.
Cheers,
Chuck
19 Dec
19 Dec
5:56 p.m.
On Monday 19 December 2005 08:27 am, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 12/18/05, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at
blazenet.net> wrote:
Them's the critters... :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Want to get even more obscure? I worked on some
machinery a while back
(QUITE a while back :-) that used some logic parts made by Amperex that
they called "Norbits"
http://www.akh.se/tubes/pix/norbits.jpg
6957
days inactive
6959
days old
24 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
aw288＠osfn.org -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
brad＠heeltoe.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
korpela＠ssl.berkeley.edu -
rtellason＠blazenet.net -
tractorb＠ihug.co.nz -
wmaddox＠pacbell.net