Agree completely, the '181 as an example of a manageable small, interesting and functional circuit. But there are far better themes for the shirt. At best perhaps the '181 could be a design element or background in some shirt. Probably not this one. Maybe in some minicomputer theme. An aside, the '181 will get a knod in the museum either an IC exhibit or special spot in the "s/m/l scale integration" minicomputer era. I agree with Jeff, the mouse is a very good candidate for the tshirt theme. We happen to a mouse exhibit too in the museum. Maybe someone can exhibit mice too in the show? DC On 1/28/2023 7:05 AM, Jeff S via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Seems I made the mistake of posting my response BEFORE my morning coffee and comingled this and the x86 message thread.
For that reason, all my arguments generally remain the same, but I still vote for the mouse on a t-shirt, exploded view if you want a technical aspect to it.
Jeff Salzman
On Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 6:48 AM Jeff S <jsalzman@gmail.com> wrote:
The 74S181 is a remarkable chip in computing history, but I feel it may be too esoteric on a t-shirt if we were make it the theme of the t-shirt.
If the schematic was used as a generic graphic, along with a VCF slogan or something, people might easily understand it as "something about computing." If we called it what it is on the shirt, it'll probably generate questions like, "why this?", As opposed to the more common, "What is this?"
Questions from the public are good, but questions from a confused public are not as good. Unless we have exhibits or a show theme about the historical significance of the 74S181, then it's schematic graphic wouldn't work as a t-shirt graphic focused on the chip itself. It might actually hurt t-shirt sales. If you showed one of our average visitors a labeled picture of the 74S181 and an IBM PC, and asked them which one they would buy as a t-shirt, what do you believe they will choose?
Think of it like this... why did we put a Commodore 64 graphic on a t-shirt before, instead of a schematic or block diagram of its VIC-II chip? The latter is a significant chip in computing history, but people will more readily recognize a computer more than a specific chip.
I first wasn't wholly set on suggesting an IBM PC as the t-shirt graphic, but good points and arguments were made in this thread about doing so. Either way, the t-shirt graphic should be something more readily recognized by a passing viewer AND be historically significant this year. In lieu of any other ideas, the IBM PC would be a better choice in my opinion.
The 74S181 sure would be a great exhibit of historical significance if someone needed an exhibit idea. 🙂