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just don't leave the cmos inputs floating

plausibly today a cpld or lattice fpga is a better alternative for most of what you could use 74xx chips for?

I think you are right, at least from what I've read; I have to admit to no actual experience with actual, modern hardware construction.

Maybe some day I'll try tinkering with a hardware project again. I was in college when 555 timers, 741 op amps, and 7400 logic gates were the basic building blocks for simple projects. Electronics, even at the hobby level, is quite different now.

I never really lost interest in hardware after my EE college work, I just got more and more interested in software and did all of my graduate and professional work on the CS side.

I used all of those components in my undergrad less than 5 years ago. I can’t remember what we used a 555 timer for, but we built calculators, EKGs, and AM radios among other things in the labs. At the time I was mad that we were using TTL logic when it seemed so out of date, but when we moved on to FPGAs I was grateful for the physical intuition I gained from building the 74xx projects.

for undergrad labs ttl has a big advantage over cmos, it doesn't die when you touch it after walking across the floor

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