Reminds me a little of the hardware development of the BBC Micro. The original design used
an NS 81LS95 multiplexer for the memory, and for reasons that nobody could explain, only
the NS component worked in their design - the same component from other vendors failed.
The core reason was due to the bus speed and how the original infrastructure design was
done, but the choice of many components was critical to the stability of the machine.
I'm not implying NS is better - just saying that it's interesting to compare
stability and long term failure rates in the field and how much they can vary.
Cheers, Wiz!!
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-
hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Sunday, 24 January 2021 5:23 AM
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] No connectivity to arsgea 4
On 1/23/21 12:48 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Speaking of things like 74-series stuff. Based on
various restoration
projects I'm aware of, there seems to be a huge difference in quality of
those ICs. Depending on manufacturing batch, and manufacturer...
Some never fail, while with some others, you can almost predict that
they will be non-functional now.
So I guess it also do depend a bit on who you picked as supplier back in
the day.
Yes, very much so. We've noticed that National Semiconductor is the
worst offender for actual IC failures, and Texas Instruments is the
worst for corrosion on IC leads.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA