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25 chips that shook the world

IEEE Spectrum has a great package of articles covering 25 Microchips that shook the world. All of your faves are there: the 555, the 6502, the 8088, the TI TMC0281 (which ET used to phone home), the PIC 16C84, the WD1402A (aka the first UART chip), the Z80, and the Sh-Boom coprocessor. The wha? Here’s […]

Pre-Edison sound sample

Pre-Edison sound sample

Édouard-Léon Scott’s phonautograph recorded sound visually and apparently did so almost 20 years before Thomas Edison’s famous audio work – For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words “Mary had a little lamb” on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they […]