
Microchips That Shook the World (2009) - jonbaer
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world
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rcarmo
The 555 tops the list, as usual. I have a sweet spot for it, since it was the
first IC I was allowed to use for my own projects-even if I blame it for
ushering in an entire era of blinkenlights...

~~~
filterfish
I blew the top of a 555 once! I still remember peering into the whole in the
top where I could still see bits of the die left. Most of it was gone! I never
worked out what happened and my teacher couldn't shed any light on it either.

Fortunately the ejected packaging didn't hit me in the eye!

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pinewurst
There's also their "Hall of Fame" updated until they stopped in 2019

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/chip-hall-of-
fame](https://spectrum.ieee.org/static/chip-hall-of-fame)

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FullyFunctional
It's a good list, but, sigh, "key innovation, a circuitry trick called address
multiplexing" \-- for anyone "skilled in the art", this isn't innovation. It's
an OBVIOUS way to deal with the pin limitation.

I posit that much of what we herald as "innovation" is just what you'd
naturally come up with if you work on the problem long and hard enough.

~~~
artemonster
Don‘t be that person, don‘t diminish previous achievements. You, with all your
arrogance, still stand on the shoulders of giants. These „innovations“ are so
frickin obvious and easy because you‘ve learned about them. Inventing them for
the first time is 100x harder.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I don't think OP was trying to be arrogant, I expect he would have diminished
his own previous achievements as well.

I've had several projects that resulted in "patent pending" applications that
I've had to review. It's frustrating to talk to sales and legal folks who want
to sell an innovation as if it were some culinary experience for which we've
got not only a secret sauce recipe but also world-class chef skills, when I
know it wasn't particularly difficult: I just stood in the kitchen with
supermarket ingredients, an average palette, and tried variations until it
tasted the way I wanted it to.

I'm not cooking, I'm building automation equipment, but the fact that you
couldn't buy something off the shelf to do a particular task before my efforts
was primarily because the application wasn't common enough yet to make it a
commodity, not that it was an insurmountable obstacle that I miraculously
overcame.

~~~
bob29
Then why patent it instead of publishing, making yourself a well known leading
expert instead of setting a landmine for the next person who does this
particular task?

~~~
javajosh
Because there is a huge amount of value to extract from the artificial
scarcity a patent lets you impose on the world.

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jeffbee
Imagine refusing to raise the pay of the inventor of the integrated op-amp.

