Can Dave find the first mention of TTL chips, on the 50th anniversary of TTL?
Some old resurrected footage and a segment idea from July 2014, Welcome to Wayback Wednesday, were Dave looks though his old Electronics Australia magazine collection.
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Hi just a little background on this video because it's not a video that I shot recently I actually shot this one back in July 2014 I've had it sitting here for ages and I was actually gonna start a new segment called way Back Wednesday where I look through my old electronics Australia magazine archives and this video was my search for the first 7400 series TTL chip the first mention of it in the electronics magazines that I have now. Unfortunately, this is not a complete video and this is why I didn't release it at the time because I got about halfway through it and I then did some copy the files over from my camera and everything else, put it back in and I had a bug in my camera at the time that I didn't understand where it actually would not record the footage. So I actually spent like a day or day and a half. two days or something like that shooting some extra footage like in about like an hour of extra footage.

But it took a couple of days to do it because I was had to flip through every page of every copy of every magazine in sequential order until I found what I was after and when I went to upload all that footage, I found that the camera did not record it and I was so peeved off right that I just didn't want to finish it and release the video and I just went on with other things and I thought it was ruined. but I've still had the footage sitting here so I haven't finished it off now. But if you liked it and if you like the segments way back Wednesday tell me about it in the comments. and if you want me to actually finish this video often, actually still try and find because I found lots of really interesting stuff in the episodes after this.

so this video ends quite abruptly. So that's a warning for you if you don't like unfinished videos. Please don't complain about it. I'm putting it up because some people may actually like it just as it is.

So anyway, if you like the Way back Wednesday Idea Concept: you want me to do more of these old, you know, nostalgia type magazine videos, then please let me know. Anyway, let's get to it. Hi welcome to Way Back Wednesday Yes I've changed I'm not sitting in front of my regular bench I'm using my new just uncommitted bench at the moment I Thought: I'd changed things up a bit. This allows me to be on camera, do the talking headshot, and actually have a bench in front of me to do stuff as well.

So if you like this sort of angle and presentation, please let me know I can sort of change the angles around a bit. Lighting's probably not great at the moment. but anyway I Thought I'd have a little experiment and yes, a little experiment with way Back Wednesday segments as well where I look at some old magazines because I Love old magazines and I have a complete collection of electronics Australia and radio, television and hobbies going right back to the 1950s. The reason that I'm doing this video is because it came to my attention recently that TTL Logic the humble seven for series TTL Logic is 50 years old Now if you believe Wikipedia and other sources the the origins of the 74 series 7400 series logic ie.
the military-grade version the 5400 series, 5 4x X series chips were first released in 1964. Yes, 50 years ago. Can you believe it? Humans had never walked on the moon then? Unbelievable. Anyway, so apparently it's a historic year for those who, well, everyone should know the seven-four series logic.

Now, the 7/4 series logic apparently didn't come around until a couple of years later. 1966. The What? The chips that you're familiar with today: These little 14 pin 16 pin plastic dip packages with the you know, the hundredths ow a spacing on them and the 300th hour wide plastic molded package. These ones were in 1966, so not quite there on 50 years.

But hey, technic. TTL The origins of the 7400 series started 50 years ago. so good enough to do a way back Wednesday on it I Think and take a look at some magazines now. apparently TTL was invented by a guy named James and Bowie back in 1961 and well, probably in a skewer patent which nobody knew about because in 1963, engineers at Sylvania they basically developed the same thing and release the first production TTL Chips transistor transistor logic chips that we use in a military contract for the Aim-54 Phoenix missile for the F-14 Tomcat and that apparently that was a wildly successful, but this wasn't Seven, Four, or Five Four series logic.

So a year later that Texas Instruments saw the success of those at Sylvania Chips in that contract and went. We want to slice of that market. So they developed the Five four series chips in ceramic packages. We didn't have the plastic dip molded packages we're familiar with, they started out in the ceramic packages in the 5400 series, but apparently when they released those, they became wildly successful.

and two years later, the 7400 series was even more popular and they just cornered the market overnight for 74 logic pretty much, and then from then on pretty much everyone else copied it. So there were other players in the market back then that had their own types of logic families and things like that might have even been TTL. But really, we're looking at the history of that 7400 series. We're so familiar with the pin outs, the numbering systems, the molded packages.

they're all the same. developed around about 50 years ago, so I Thought it'd be interesting to dig in to my electronics Australia slash radio TV and hobbies magazines here and have a look around that date and see if I can find any mention of it. Now granted, these aren't like, you know, hobbyist level magazines so I don't have access to any of the trade journals at the time where I'm sure you get like a more accurate picture on that thought sort of thing. so I probably don't expect them around about that release date mentioned by mention on Wikipedia and other sources and I thought it'd be interesting to see.
Also if I could track down when the first 7400 series project came around in a do-it-yourself project in these electronics magazines. So I loved it. Yes, it's got that old smell, love it, it's intoxicating. but certainly EA and Radio TVs and Javis was a world-class electronics enthusiasts and Industry magazine as well.

Tons of people in the industry actually read it, but it wasn't your traditional journal. it was more like a hobby level magazine, but it'd be interesting to find out. It's probably going to take a lot a lot of searching to try and track down this sort of stuff, but hey, let's see where we can find the first mention of it. And here's the January 1964 Edition 2 & 6 look at the head costs 2 & 6 back in the day I Don't know what that would translate to in today's money accounting for inflation or something like that, but yeah, there we go.

We've got some space themed stuff which is very popular back in the day and if of course electronics. Australia Back then was called a Radio Television and Hobbies or RTV and H and it did radio television, hi-fi electronics, amateur radio, popular science and hobbies. terrific. And basically and back in the day they're talking about servicemen and licensing and pretty much back in the day looking see the yellowing of the of the paper here unfortunately getting a tad old.

but anyway you can back then in the day, these magazines, as I've said in previous videos were the only way to get your information. There was no communications revolution, there was no internet, and this is where you got all your information. So there are several places inside the magazine each month where you would find all the latest news. One would be the scientific industry or news here, and the other one would be the trade reviews and releases.

So if we jump on over to page 23 Scientific and Industrial News they would often have you know, semi can doctor or other science breakthroughs and physics and things like that mixed in with the ads. Of course the ads can be almost more interesting than the articles sometimes. and so what I've done is I've looked through all of 1964 every issue in both the scientific and industrial news and also the other section I'll show you in a minute and I really could not find any mention whatsoever of the 5'4 or other TTL series logic. It just basically did not happen.

Nobody cared. And of course, that's not terribly surprising because well, yeah, okay, the 540 I might have released the 5-4 series chips, but really, um, it was just for military applications back at the time and probably wouldn't make the trade journals or any of the hobby magazines like this and it certainly wouldn't be able to buy them. But anyway, this is the trade reviews and releases where they'd do like little mini reviews of products and they'd also mention this is not a particularly good example. Now there's only a couple of pages.
Some months were like fill like five pages of just all sorts of product releases. I'll be able to show you that in a minute, you know Ti ever unless new chip or signetics of released a new chip or a new family or something like that. And yes, folks, you can earn big money in television. I'm here to tell you.

Oh and by the way, no they didn't actually come in these brown paper binders like this. The guy who I got these from who was collecting them from the 50s I wasn't around then so these are not my original copies I only started getting them in the late 70s and early 80s when it was electronics. Australia Anyway, not here. I actually bound these things and put them into individual folders.

Still haven't found anything but in March 1964. Rather interesting note here in the scientific News about one of the newest products in the electronics industry, the tunnel Diode. It's bringing about a revolution in computer design with a switching time of one nanosecond 1000 millionth part of a second. They have to actually explain that to you I Love it! Total Diodes looked like dominating the design of third generation computers with speeds approximately 10 times today's sophisticated designs Outright is a tiny logic unit containing two tunnel tunnel diodes and for special resistors.

Awesome. But I Do love this article here about transistor patents: Three American companies Western Electric American Telugu Agora Telephone and Telegraph and Bill failing in their High Court claim that Western Electric patent relating to the transistors should be extended there. Here guys. So it looks like they were fighting over all the patents for the transistor back in the day and they basically as established that the basic pattern on transistors has now expired back in April 1965.

It appears unlikely that no manian patterns on transistor applications will in the future be extended to the end of their normal term. The Beautiful: The benefit of the British industry will be cheaper production of transistors and equipment with uses for them for the home market. Terrific! Ah pattern. Wars They have always been around.

Here's an interesting ad from the September 1965 edition not TTL Well, I Don't know what they were, but going digital circuit blocks cut cost. When it comes to building Le Choice systems, there is no surer way of cutting cost, Speeding up production in abundant by specifying Maillard circuit blocks from Male Australia from Malad limited in London There you go so early. Digital, Not Chips as we know them today, but pretty much just modular blocks like hybrid blocks. I Don't know what the construction would have been like inside I don't even know if they were a hundred thousand those.

And it's not until April 1966 that we actually start getting some mention in this section of the magazine, which is that trade review and product releases about some fair Fairchild Digital Yeah Chips Fair Folder Fairchild Have recently released three low-cost epoxy encapsulated integrated circuits in to.5 packages. not even the dual inline dip packages that we're familiar with these days. They are the Ful 900 buffer inverter and also the Fu all known for dual to input gate and the Nine two Three JK flip-flop does fine, operate from a supply voltage of three point six over a temperature range of fifteen to fifty five g's and only goes down to fifteen C Unbelievable. And it's not until December 1966 here that we get our first sniff of Texas Instruments chips coming in here.
Let's take a closer look at this and here we go: Texas Instruments Australia Limited Yes, they had an Australian outlet in South Australia No doubt now has available digital integrated circuits in the 930 series configuration in a molded plastic package the complete family of eleven detail or diode transistor logic circuits is available in the molder package including dual, triple and quadruple NAND gates, buffers, expanders, all sorts of stuff one-shots designed for operation in industrial temperature range 0 to 75 you ago, the transfer molded plastic package featuring 14 plug in Pinza on a hundred mill or hundredth. our Centers for Flows salary and wire Wrap technique. distance between rows of pins is 300 mils. Basically, they are describing exactly what you're familiar with these days of these standard and dip packages here.

And here's a Texas Instruments R7 445 from unfortunately only 1987. That's the sort of the oldest one in the 7 400 series without going into the more modern variants like LS and hates E and F and all sorts of other ones. But there you go say these were available in December 1966, but still not in the 7400 series. They were available in the 930 series and they won't even transistor transistor logic.

They'll still using detail back then, but there you go. I Mean that's basically what you could buy at the end of December 1966. So that's pretty much what I expected. Yeah, I Probably don't doubt that the TI did release these things in 1966, but hey, you know whether or not they flow down to Australia Here, this is just the Texas versus Australia announcing the availability of these thing here in Australia, But interestingly, in June 1966, look what? I found an article on by none other than Jim Rowe Good a Jim If you're watching, he's still around and he still writes very occasionally as a contributor for projects in Silicon Chip Magazine.

Fantastic good on you Jim And he wrote an introduction to logic and counting circuits. and there's some interesting stuff in here, but there any built like these demonstrator things. I Love that the first television camera designed specifically for your needs? Yeah, look at that ultra tiny sucker. Love it.
But yeah, he goes into you know, operations of and or and all that sort of jazz. and here we go. These are the different types Jim talks about in 1966 Diode Logic which is basically what you see here. Then there's tunnel.

Diode logic whizzes exactly the same, but they're saying it's a faster of course, often abbreviated to TTL I Love it and look at this. Neon Logic uses neon bulbs or three element neon trigger. Choose to perform logic abbreviated to NL Oh my goodness, anyone remember Neon logic? Cord diode logic is performed by semiconductor diodes and small ferrite. Toroidal course for moderate speed a moderate power levels that's called CDL I Love it! For layered device logic, uses thyristors and RS ers to perform logical operation where high current and high voltages and then we've got something that might be TTL although it's not called that.

Direct coupled transistor logic uses transistors, switching between bottom, saturated and cutoff states to perform logic depends upon use the transistors with carefully controlled parameters. Economical, but tends to be susceptible to noise because of the lower voltage levels employed D CTL and then also current Mode logic uses transistors to perform logic, but biasing is from constant current sources to prevent saturation and allow extremely rapid switching as high noise immunity despite fairly low logic levels. A relatively recent system growing in popularity a brief the CML And then of course you got Diode Transistor Logic, which we looked at the ad for Dto and Resistor Transistor Logic as well, but that is basically it on the types they don't no mention of specifically TTL even though it you know it was technically released two years earlier in the 500 series fare in the 5400 series family and I Found this one in March 1966 and it talks about a new range of ICS from Ferranti and the once again there DTL Diode Transistor Logic. None of this TTL Rubbish Said to offer very high noise immunity, ultra high switching, ultra high switching speeds, large fan-out wide application available in eight lead to.5 and fourteen lead plastic would have been plastic pack encapsulation.

There you go and contains up to sixty discrete components. The micron or two is already system proved a new production line was still being soon be an operation capable of producing Wow forty thousand chips a week. Unbelievable turn them out! Since commencing work on integrated circuits in 1964, Ante has introduced over a hundred different integrated circuit designs in its micro Nor One and micro. Lin Rangers Ah man, anyone remember those.

And by the way, if you want to know when it changed names from our T V and H to Electronics Australia Here it is the first ever edition of EA as it's fondly known here in Australia April 1965 is still Two and Six You Beauty Haircut Australia and presumably Australian manufactured art TVs on the front and yet come a picture the production line that the AWA Electric works at Ashfield in New South Wales showing the new 25 inch deep image TV lowboy receivers undergoing final adjustment of linearity and centering of the picture. excellent and and Neville Williams Of course the editor had changed. You know he talks about changing the name and why this month, in accordance with earlier in the journal comes to you under the name Electronics Australia A choice I might mention that has a receipt. Why'd? approval from readers and advertiser like adoption of the new name represents another phase in our development.
Each reflected similar phases in the industry in which we part. And you've got to remember the history of this magazine - it was even in this edition when it first changed its name to EA it was already 43 years old. It originally started in 1922 under the name Wireless Weekly and that changed in 1939 - Radio and Hobbies and then in mid 50s it became Radio, Television and Hobbies And when television became popular. Now, ten years later, television has become just another segment in an industry as continuing to expand and penetrate into almost every field of human endeavor.

It is logical therefore that we should drop the individual nouns and major on the one word which now adequately describes our range of interest: Electronics, Beauty. And here's the front cover of the November 1965 issue. And yes, that is a I see a digital IC on the front. It's a Fairchild a planar epitaxial complementary transistor micro logic device part of the the CU L nine to five eight.

There you go. It's a decade counter involving four binary triggered flip-flops Beautiful! So I went through all the way from 1964 through to November to February 1967. Here found no mention of T is 5'4 or 74 series logic at all. But in this edition I did find the first ever project to use an IC.

So I don't know if this was the world's first do-it-yourself construction project that used an IC, but I don't know. It wouldn't have been far off if anyone knows of any other magazines around the world that came out with IC project. so sooner EA did innovate a lot of stuff. A lot of the early computers were done in Electronics Australia magazine as well and so we can take a look at this project which actually used the first IC but sadly it's still not even In 1967, not the 7400 series and today here it is once again by the innovator Jim Row good on you Jim It's a one megahertz square wave generator using integrated micro circuits once again in that To5 type circular package.

none of this jewel inline stuff. Now this one actually uses the Fairchild parts which was looked at. This uses the F Ul 900 buffer, the Fe oil now and four jewel two input gate and the 93 JK flip-flop we looked at before. There are a dollar each or a dollar and eighty I'm not sure how easy they get, you probably had to go directly from the the Fairchild Australia I don't know if you could get them, couldn't just walk into your local electronics store which were basically still selling valves back then and pick these things up.
so there would have been state of the art. but here we go. there's the medium power buffer and the two input nor gate pin outs with the once again but we're not looking at TTL but this is the first project which actually used ICS and this would have been massively innovative for the day. And as we mentioned before, they operate at a head nominal 3 point 6 volts plus or minus 10% guarantee.

They're a temperature range of only 15 to 55 degrees Celsius and have a propagation delay of 12 nanoseconds. That wasn't bad for the day. And for resistor transistor logic like this, pretty good. And there's a schematic for it.

Not much in there at all. I Love it! Parts list and by mail order. There you go yet! Fairchild Australia Proprietary limited you can get them directly for Parramatta Just down the road Beautiful! I Love it. And there's the internal wiring diagram, all that tag board stuff you know, No, none of this PCB rubbish or just tag strip and point-to-point wiring and stuff like that.

but that's pretty neat. And a couple of crow shots as well. Yes, crow is Cathode ray oscilloscope what we call scopes here in Australia And yeah, they would have got this with a scope camera or a CRO camera back in the day, a hood that actually clips to the front with a film camera. They would have exposed the film, developed it, and then not pasted this in the artwork for the magazine to be printed.

Beautiful! Just a quick aside here, factors in the design of fete Voltmeters because up until this point, pretty much you know valves for everything. But now once again, Jim Row comes along and explains how to use these newfangled fits in. You know, to basically replace your valves and what they do is they just basically duplicate a standard dart valve circuit. they're a for an electronic Voltmeter and then just basically duplicate it with the J fats and then go on in the article and explain how to implement J Fats.

But that's just a good starting point so that you know everyone can get used to because they're already used to valves fitting knowing how they work well. J Fetzer Bait Well, valves are basically J fits with pilot lights as my mate Dougie calls them. So yeah, that's pretty much all there is Mm. Then they go in to explain how they all work.

Fantastic stuff and that was July 1967 on the front cover. How to assemble a silicon transistor? Brilliant! Look at that, you and you may certainly recognize the name. Come on, it's me. Yay! This is one of my most successful Teske projects I had published and I've actually got it up.

here. Here is the original look at this. This has still got the dust on it. There's my original PCD or so adapter that I built and that was actually the one they photographs I did did actually look like that.
that was actually paper with some transparency.

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By YTB

24 thoughts on “Eevblog #867 – the search for the first ttl chip”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars videolabguy says:

    Awesome! I have scanned tons of U.S. electronics magazines from the 60s and 70s. Scanning took forever because I would get sucked in and start reading the darn things instead of scanning! you rock!

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Sage says:

    It's a shame that Wayback Wednesday didn't become a regular thing.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Michael Sommers says:

    I think 2/6 would have been worth A$0.21 after decimalization.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars robert croft says:

    Wow dinochips…….

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars R S says:

    74xx parts were like puzzle pieces. It forced people to be very creative in their designs. Sometimes I look at the old designs and just marvel at the solutions we found. Now you just write some code and out comes logic (boring).

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Stephen Davis says:

    I remember chip chasing TTL cct's when I was an engineer @ Digital… I actually quite liked working with TTL and ECL, made sense.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Patrik Molinder says:

    This got me thinking of Doc Browns "on the hood replacement" of that little chip in the Delorian. Was it visible which chip it was? And if so, is the prop displayed in the Back to the Future part 3 movie possibly accurate? Could be an interesting project. 😉

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Steven yamada says:

    Yes! More please.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars SteveMHN says:

    Mailbag Monday
    Teardown Tuesday
    Wayback Wednesday
    Fundamentals Friday

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Rob WARD says:

    Hi Dave, Can I put a vote to finish this one off. The talk rambled a bit, however there are so many delicious distractions in the magazines it must have been very difficult to bypass them all. Your approach I reckoned is what I would have done if I was flicking through, so I understand. Can I also suggest that the first mention of the venerable LM555 and LM741 should also be tracked as well. Both of these chips were about where I came into EA and became bread and butter chips for many magazine circuits and my own designs. I seriously began my electronics as a hobby by haunting the electronics disposals shop in Elizabeth St Melbourne for cheap components (the eBay of its day?). My first project was a multivibrator using disposal glass encased germanium transistors c:1972. Still have a few! Anyway keep your site going, it is great to put it on when the wife is working, haha. Love it.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Orvtrebor says:

    I really enjoyed the history lesson. It would be really nice to see more of these, maybe once a month?

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DGerber says:

    Would love more Wayback Wednesday. And scans of the magazines. Oh, how 'mazing it would be to read those old mags.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Larry's linears says:

    Look at Teledyne Seminiconductor!

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Aesri [INC] says:

    Wayback Wednesday would be a really cool segment!

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars gamccoy says:

    I could look at old ads all day long. I love old tech magazines.

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars SlyPearTree says:

    I love going thru old electronic magazines when I can find some, and you're right about the adverts sometime being more interesting than the articles. That's a vote for Wayback Wednesday by the way.

  17. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Tyvole says:

    Back in 1974 I started working in electronics for MEL, formerly Mullard Electronics Limited in the UK. While there, I encountered some peculiar objects – Norbits. These were essentially logic circuits constructed from discrete components on a circuit board then potted into a plastic block, like an over-sized dual-in-line package. Considered to be historically interesting even back then, my understanding was that they were still used extensively in things like lift (elevator) control systems. Sadly, there's not a huge amount of information about them available these days but they were definitely a pre-cursor of the logic chips we all came to know and love. As I recall, each one was about 2 inches by 1 inch and weighed around an ounce, so not exactly miniature either. However, an interesting curio these days.

  18. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars mrcrtking says:

    You gotta love the Z80 too.

  19. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gpcas9 says:

    Oh my god , you looked so young back then 😉

  20. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gpcas9 says:

    Oh my god , you looked so young back then 😉

  21. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Előd Valkai says:

    Yes yes yes, please finish it. Just watched the first few minutes but I know I want to see it all :D.

  22. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars FennecTECH says:

    wayback wedsday finish it yes yes yes want to see

  23. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars BenShapiro2 WT says:

    sorry if it shows i rrpeated myself my phones a bit wierd. but i do have dome ti ttl chips and i have access to hundreds possibly thousands

  24. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars diecast jam says:

    Notice page 4 of the first magazine you show says computers?

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