More about how #TI’s delays in introducing the TMS9940, and increases in price from the initially promised US$38, led Bang & Olufsen to abandon it for the Intel 8048 in late 01977 for their Beocenter 7000. #electronics #history
on 02026-06-25#PDF scan of an 01980 ad for #TI’s TMS9900 CPU family, touting it as “TI’s 16-bit 9900 Family. For price. For performance.” Not. From the January 01980 IEEE Spectrum. Also has an ad for the Bellmac MAC-4, touting “its assembler language, C, also developed at Bell Labs.” #history #humor #electronics
on 02026-06-25FarmerPotato said, “[The #TI 9940] was a cursed CPU: it had so many bugs, Texas Instruments withdrew it from production. But it gave its name to the Home Computer.” Also mentions the TMS 990’s innovative conditional jump mechanism: “This machine didn’t have a conditional branch (like JEQ, JNE.) Instead, you modified the next branch instruction by adding a result to its jump target.” #history
on 02026-06-25The Beocord 8000 tape player from Bang & Olufsen was supposed to be built in #TI’s TMS9940, but TI kept failing to deliver it, so they switched to the Intel #8048, or actually the 8049. #history
on 02026-06-25Another #history of the “debacle” of #TI’s “never fully functional” TMS9940. Sadly it doesn’t explain what was wrong with it.
on 02026-06-25Mentor Graphics’s Walden C. Rhines tells the #history of #TI’s late unlamented TMS9900.
“Indeed, some who know the history assert that the Intel 8088 was the worst among several possible 16-bit microprocessors of the day.
“It was not. There was a serious alternative that was worse. I know because I was in charge of the organization within Texas Instruments that developed it: the TMS9900. Although this dog of a chip went on to be used in the world’s first 16-bit home computer, you’ve probably never heard of it.”
There’s an aside about TI’s the “largely unsuccessful attempt to develop a compatible 16-bit microcontroller called the TMS9940”.
on 02026-06-25#EEVblog #video about a #TI NE5532 (but not NE5534) revision that sounds like TI stopped caring about quality. They cut the absolute maximum voltage from ±22V to ±18V and cut the slew rate in half from 9V/μs to 5V/μs, and also entirely dropped the specs for things like crosstalk. Dave also says they’ve changed the frontend topology from npn differential pairs to pnp differential pairs, which seems like it could affect a lot of things like the common-mode range and the sign of the input bias current. It’s probably among TI’s top 20 sold op-amps. It’s like a supply-chain counterfeiting problem, except it was launched by TI against their own customers! Whenever you order TI NE5532s you won’t know if you’re getting the old higher-quality parts or the new parts that may blow up on ±20V rails.
on 02026-06-02#PDF #appnote from #TI on the quirks of the #LM324 #opamp #hardware. #electronics
on 02026-04-29#introduction to #TI #68000 #calculators
on 02023-07-08Hooloovoo's collection of 67 portable graphing #calculators, including #68000 models from #TI
on 02023-07-08#TI #censorship of 1960s datasheets from #Bitsavers
on 02021-01-13#TI appnote ("application brief") SPRA252: “How Can Comb Filters be Used to Synthesize Musical Instruments on a TMS320 #DSP?” from 1997. Covers the basic form of #Karplus-Strong string synthesis, with C and assembly source code. Contains basic errors, but it’s pretty amazing to see a synthesizer in four instructions. 11 pages. #pdf
on 02016-06-23