CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@neil If you turn the clock back further than the 1970s, most of the high streets had businesses that offered scheduled delivery. They worked more like Ocado, but there was no internet to set up the schedules and make selections. You're stuck with your local offerings, but that's also an advantage. We currently have all our eggs in too few baskets for our own long term good.

@neil I'm not sure it's an anachronism, in that a high street as it was would be quite appealing, but there aren't many places where that can exist. It'd require a combination of no supermarket or home delivery grocery coverage, fairly affluent residents and for that situation to have been constant over time.

@rasteri @Extelec IIRC 4016 is more amenable to using it in a linear mode but it's a while since I tried. 4066s are used with a PWM control signal in several 1980s and even early 1990s broadcast audio processors, you get a 40dB or so of control range with no meaningful distortion, just add low pass filters on the i/o to get rid of the switching noise and to prevent aliasing.

@Extelec thinking about it, it must've been more like 2,000, an unmanageable quantity …anyway

@Extelec I once owned about 10,000 4020s that I'd bought from Bonex for £50, which also meant that I'd cycled the 11 miles home with them on a bike without panniers. It took me years to get rid of them at rallies and still find tubes of them in unexpected places. I still remember the huge box that they were originally in had a hole in it and it would occasionally launch some tubes of 4020s as I cycled home.

@Extelec @concretedog Weirdly mine was 4047, because my introduction to 4000 series parts was through Tom Duncan's Adventures with Microelectronics, the followup to Adventures with Electronics. I never had the third book, Adventures with Digital Electronics, so I don't know what happened next…

@concretedog @Extelec 40106 was also the favourite of Ray Wilson of MFOS and I can see how it could be your 555.

@Extelec I've just remembered a discussion about 4000 series chips where one of the designers entered the chat (actually a redesigner). I think it was the 74HC4046A, which *is* awesome but maybe HC doesn't count here.

@Extelec 4011 is just too useful and foundational for all the other circuits but what about a 4007 which is almost lot logic at all? It was a favourite of a late friend and it should get a mention, you can make so many cool things with a 4007.

@Extelec Difficult to choose, when I was 11 it was 4511 7 segment decoder driver, followed by 4017 for making LEDs flash in sequence. Today I know too many and although I like the more MSI ones perhaps something mundane like a 4011 would be a favourite but I use 4066s the most. If you'd asked me in 1991 it would've been a 4060, 4024 or a 4046

@GossiTheDog Works for me, but Facebook is down. Weird.