Forgotten PC History

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When I worked at Odetics Anaheim,CA in the mid-70s we used tons of the
"flatpacks" in our Spacebourne black boxes. They came in TTL, CMOS and I
think even some ECL. The parts were spot welded with the legs straight out
to gold posts that protruded slightly off of the PCBs. Expensive stuff, a
RAM chip cost about $600 at the time. The parts were real low profile and
weighed less than DIPs ( important in spacecraft, weight / space is at a
premium ). The parts were all MIL-STD and some projects even RAD-hardened
parts. Fun stuff.

Best regards, Steven

> On Friday 08 August 2008 21:44, Eric Smith wrote:
> > Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > > The other thing that I took some notice of was mention of an 18-pin
chip
> > > package as "recently developed" at one point in the story,  and later
on
> > > the mention of the 40-pin package as being then available.
> >
> > The 18 pin-per-package limit claims regarding the 4004 and 8008 have
> > been around for a long time, and I think they came from interviews with
> > Intel's founders and/or early employees, but I think they're factually
> > incorrect, at least as commonly stated.
> >
> > The 24-pin DIP was very well established by 1968, and was already used
> > by TI at that time.
>
> My first TTL databook was from TI,  and I believe there was some small
number
> of 24-pin devices in there,  like the 74154 and similar.  (Hope I'm
> remembering right here.  :-)
>
> > There were certainly higher pin-count packages at that time also.  I'm
not
> > sure about the 40-pin DIP, but in 1969 Fairchild was shipping at least
one
> > memory chip in a 36-pin DIP, though that particular package never became
> > popular.
>
> There were also those "flatpacks" which I never could figure out.  A
precursor
> to surface mount?  Something else?
>
> > Possibly whatever specific company Intel was contracting with to supply
> > lead frames and ceramic packages didn't yet offer higher pin count
> > packages, but they obviously were available from some vendors since
> > other semiconductor companies like Fairchild and TI were using them.
>
> I guess a large part of it was the machinery to handle that stuff too,
> besides the lead frames themselves.  I don't know much about that stuff so
I
> don't know if any given production machinery would be adaptable to many
> different sizes or if you'd need a different bigger machine to handle
them.
> If the latter was the case then I can see where they might be reluctant if
> there weren't a lot of demand.
>
> --
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by
lies. --James
> M Dakin