buescher

I would guess that it's maybe not, because I've never heard of any IC DRAM before the commercially available Intel DRAM.

Other types of imaging devices, sure. But the trick of decapping a DRAM requires a DRAM chip.

Micron made one in the early eighties also and Steve Ciarcia promptly produced a DIY version for Byte.

Even earlier than that. The cromemco camera and similar hobbyist projects dated from the mid-70s.

Probably not: you grossly underestimate the amount of urban growth and development worldwide since the industrial revolution.

Option C: Let the tiger drive, and pretend there is no human to hold accountable

S100 systems were sometimes called mainframes after their card cage construction: usually with the qualifier “s-100 mainframe” for the system or the enclosure and backplane.

Just wait until they shred all the old useless books

True, but “normal schedule” is hiding a bit of subtlety there: the hpv vaccine was recommended for women up to 26 at the time, so the oldest women who got it then would be pushing 50 now.

>You're supposed to be able to order "a" 5532 without specifying the supplier

This is not true.

>because many vendors produce "a" 5532

This is true, in the sense of a "5532-type part". But you will note that all the 5532 variants have different manufacturer's part numbers (prefixes and suffixes) to prevent this confusion. They don't just do that for branding.

>and they're all the same.

This is emphatically and trivially not true, and it tells me you haven't done the work of carefully comparing data sheet specs across suppliers. Try it, you'll learn something.

>Different vendors' 5532s are supposed to be able to be treated as the same SKU — literally dumped into co-mingled stock in warehouses — with no ill consequence!

That might happen somewhere, but authorized distributors do not do this and volume manufacturers do not do this. You might have an internal part number with an authorized suppliers list that includes more than one variant of 5532 that has been vetted for production.

>And yes, until TI's recent move, that was true of the 5532. All the other vendors' 5532s had matching datasheet specs

Again, emphatically and trivially not true. Take a careful look at the NJM and On Semi data sheets. Spec by spec. Do the work and be amazed.

>the warehouse they're sourcing from has comingled any TI 5532s into the general 5532 stock

Authorized distributors do not do this. It gets hairy when you're sourcing NOS from grey market dealers for old designs or in severe part crunches like 2020-2022 era, but that's a different story.

>no real recourse except to change your entirely supply chain to one that specifically excludes TI

This concept is backwards. You would have an internal part number for 5532-type op amp, and it would have an authorized vendors list that would only include vetted parts. "Any 5532 but TI" is asking for trouble from someone else.

And parts do change or get updated and if you are buying from authorized distributors for production you and your supply chain and quality people will get product change notices. At that point it's your job (or the component engineer's, if you're fortunate enough to have one) to validate the new version or find a suitable alternate.

No, I’m talking about the guy that builds prototypes out of his magic parts box and says “oh, you can still get those” when the last direct substitute was obsoleted in 2008. Or he’s using the old version of a part like this in a “proven” subcircuit and NOT checking for change notices or other the new data sheets. That’s what I mean by the “magic parts box”. Buy new parts for new prototypes and read all the latest data, folks.

They’re just not really standardized at all, especially semiconductors. Not in the sense you’d expect naively. Some were a long time ago, and supposedly the old Japanese sc parts were, down to die geometry and process. But otherwise, the part number means “this is like the part with a similar number first made by someone else”, not “this is an exact replacement in every way”

It annoys me too but part numbers are not a spec but more of a strong hint. The attitude of the industry is that it’s up to you to read data sheets carefully and test. Even for a 2N2222 or whatever.

This is why you should always order new parts for a new design and never, never trust the old guy with the magic parts box. Also why learning to read and compare data sheets skeptically is a fundamental skill.