The history of solid state electronics is something I like to study. I just read a short bio on Jack Kilby and found out he worked at Texas Instruments. I 'thought' Fairchild was the first to bring IC's to market. I'm going to find out more about him.
I have several calculators but the one I use all the time was made by Texas Instruments.
Kilby's IC was made of germanium. Noyce built one half a year later out of silicon. Noyce was at Fairchild at the time (before starting Intel). So Fairchild was probably first to market with a more practical solution - although the Wikipedia article on Kilby indicates that the US Air Force bought germanium ICs from TI.
My first calculator was a TI-30, the first truly low-cost TI calculator. It became available the same year I started my electronics studies, perfect timing. Most of my co-students got one as well, except for a few with Casio calculators. But two or three years later I tried an RPN HP hand-held calculator, and since then it was only HP for me.
I bought my first sliderule when I was in my 30s because it was a device that always interested me. I actually keep it at my desk at work. Although I was born after the sliderule generation, I still learned how to use it and can do several functions with it.
Hard to believe it's only been 60 years, considering what we have nowadays in comparison. I started in electronics manufacturing at HP when I was 18 and at that time we were just beginning to see this crazy IC package called a BGA. That was 27 years ago.
I asked for -- and got -- a sliderule for my 12th birthday. It was a simple plastic affair, but endlessly fascinating to a young math nerd. 'Bought a better one for college. And now I wear one every day:
I only use it to compute mileage when I fill up my old diesel Mercedes.
First two years of high school. Academics in the morning, electronics every afternoon. The required math was taught with electronic so picked some trig very early. Calculators hp-35 >$300, hp-45>even more $$$. 1st year, 1st semester we learned slide rules, no calculators. Picket 1010ES, still have it, still can use some of it. There was a (I think) Radio Electronics or Popular Electronics magazine that came out then with plans to build an 8008 based computer in 1973 or 74. Growing up in San Jose was interesting to say the least. Not just the history in the electronics field. Speaking of fields, for Heater, San Jose in the 60s was almost all orchards ( Santa Clara I think) was the prune capitol of the world, and corn fields. You could go from hwy17 and Camden Ave to Intel on the San Thomas Expressway (talk about irony in naming) in about 20-30 minutes on a slow day, 45mph, you could hit all the green lights. Try that now. 0200-0300..... maybe.....
Then used slide rules in my Electronics course.
Calculators were those big desktop units made by Friden. Portable calculators hit the scene just after I finished my electronics course.
I worked with one of the first 40 DIP chips was ceramic with gold legs - a UART but not a bussed UART, but rather a standalone serial to parallel and a parallel to serial Chip. This was 1972-3.
Me nearly the same. Log and sine tables at school, then learned to use a slide rule.
At uni some had expensive HPs I only had a four function calculator with memory function. But I was often faster with it than the HP guys. I did my diploma thesis in physics and use big iron (IBM /370). I was one of the first to do the typesetting using the big machine.
I had my first ICs (TTL, 74xx) in the early 70ties, made my first PCB of course upside down.
Hello!
In my case I was exposed to the first calculators, four-bangers and a scientific one around the early 1970s. Then when in high-school I also was exposed to my first ICs, (also TTL, 74xx) and linear ones. Oddly enough largely all made by TI.
Now an astonishing forty years later, I'm still using TTL stuff mostly from TI. And certainly Parallax gear, the BASIC Stamp. And as it happens I also was exposed to big iron, the IBM S/370 but in my early years in school, call it first to second and even third grade periods, for an experiment that IBM was doing. then years later a friend who's father was an IBM Research Fellow continued the process. Now? I still have one.
The following message was sponsored by Bobcats Are Everywhere a big cat specialty support club.
rbehm
Posts: 102
Comments
10 years after that we could get hold of all those TTL chips. I built my digital clock with TTL chips and Nixie tubes.
12 years after that we had a calculator on a chip from TI and I built a calculator from a kit with it: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/advance-wireless_world.html
Another 4 years later we could get our hands on 8 bit micro-processors and we started dreaming up our own computer boards.
I have several calculators but the one I use all the time was made by Texas Instruments.
My first calculator was a TI-30, the first truly low-cost TI calculator. It became available the same year I started my electronics studies, perfect timing. Most of my co-students got one as well, except for a few with Casio calculators. But two or three years later I tried an RPN HP hand-held calculator, and since then it was only HP for me.
Am I showing my age
I bought my first sliderule when I was in my 30s because it was a device that always interested me. I actually keep it at my desk at work. Although I was born after the sliderule generation, I still learned how to use it and can do several functions with it.
Hard to believe it's only been 60 years, considering what we have nowadays in comparison. I started in electronics manufacturing at HP when I was 18 and at that time we were just beginning to see this crazy IC package called a BGA. That was 27 years ago.
I only use it to compute mileage when I fill up my old diesel Mercedes.
-Phil
Having a sliderule - No... Knowing how to use it - Yes!
;-)
Then used slide rules in my Electronics course.
Calculators were those big desktop units made by Friden. Portable calculators hit the scene just after I finished my electronics course.
I worked with one of the first 40 DIP chips was ceramic with gold legs - a UART but not a bussed UART, but rather a standalone serial to parallel and a parallel to serial Chip. This was 1972-3.
At uni some had expensive HPs I only had a four function calculator with memory function. But I was often faster with it than the HP guys. I did my diploma thesis in physics and use big iron (IBM /370). I was one of the first to do the typesetting using the big machine.
I had my first ICs (TTL, 74xx) in the early 70ties, made my first PCB of course upside down.
In my case I was exposed to the first calculators, four-bangers and a scientific one around the early 1970s. Then when in high-school I also was exposed to my first ICs, (also TTL, 74xx) and linear ones. Oddly enough largely all made by TI.
Now an astonishing forty years later, I'm still using TTL stuff mostly from TI. And certainly Parallax gear, the BASIC Stamp. And as it happens I also was exposed to big iron, the IBM S/370 but in my early years in school, call it first to second and even third grade periods, for an experiment that IBM was doing. then years later a friend who's father was an IBM Research Fellow continued the process. Now? I still have one.
The following message was sponsored by Bobcats Are Everywhere a big cat specialty support club.