About the Chipdir
What is and was new?
This page is in reversed historical order.
200206: PHP etc.
Lately (already some years) I'm studying PHP (and Python and Perl and MySQL) in order to
automate the Chipdir even more. It's this unclear to me which parts will be automated off-line
and which on-line, but things will get more automated. In the mean time I'm getting to be a real
wizzard at PHP and even wrote the currently standard PHP script to access XML-data from Amazon.
Recently DIV2 the games making software version 2 was released, see www.div-arena.com/
and I'm very pleased with some of the improvements. Of course Amazon's XML feature was also nice
although developments aren't going as fast as we had hoped.
It's summer
And it's summer so the plants in my 10 by 10 back garden grow like crazy.
The herbs valerian and venkel have even grown taller than I am
and I'm of quite normal size (about 1.8 m).
The valerian is already almost as high as the young cherry tree next to it...
Speaking of the cherry tree: It had about 40 cherries on it in it's third year.
The raspberries are getting ripe during these weeks and I also have a lot of forest strawberries
and real strawberries who are also getting ripe these months. And I haven't even mentioned the
redberries and blackberries yet... And in late summer the graphes will be ripe again...
I bought a faster motherboard with a 1 Ghz AMD Duron.
My mother had computer problems, so I wanted to let her have my current computer
and therefore I had to upgrade my own computer.
Now some of the games (Wiggles/Diggles demo) run faster,
but now my graphics card (still TNT2) is the bottleneck for 3D games and it needs upgrading.
But I can't use upgrading my mother's computer as an excuse, because she already has my old
TNT card and never plays 3D games...
By the way, I'm running Linux now in the form of Mandrake Linux 8.1
and I have removed NT because I got frustrated that it was too non-standard in the Windows world.
I do serious things under Linux of course and I found W95 to be very stable anyway.
I upgraded W95 to W98 because a lot of game demos didn't run under W95 anymore.
Due to circumstances the W98 is a Dutch version so I get very weird error messages that I first
have to translate back to English before I can understand them.
Can Microsoft really not afford to hire good translators?
Oh, and in case you're wondering: Yes, I'm licensed to run W98... My name is Bond, Jaap Bond.
200004: Linux!
I have finally ported everything from my 166 MHz DEC Alpha
running DEC UNIX v3.2 to my AMD K6-2 333 MHz running Linux.
I was already using it running NT and W95 since 199810.
199704: The "Tech Ten" award
The ChipDir was awarded the April
"Tech Ten"
award of the
Tech Museum of Innovation
in San Jose, Silicon Valley, California, because of it's usefulness
for middle-school and above students, teachers and parents.
Award criteria:
- Focused on high technology and innovation
- Relevant and understandable to a middle-school and above audience
- Fun and engaging
199612: What was changed?
- Added/corrected all data as suggested by emailers
- Added more stuff from mailing lists about special subjects.
- Added a lot of manufacturers logos.
- Added subscribe buttons to the mailing list descriptions.
- And a lot more...
199609: Trying to improve Chinese - Russian relations
This message was sent via an anonymous remailer, but I'll remove all possibly tracable information. Bonafied secret services may contact me directly to get more information... ;-)
| date |
19960918 |
| to |
Jaap van Ganswijk |
| subject |
Re: Identifying old Soviet chips |
Dear Mr. Jaap van Ganswijk!
I can not express in a simple words all my gratitude
to you for the job you are doing - maintaining your
ChipDir. This is a great heroic deed.
But, please, be careful with Chinese!!!
I can guess, what are they interested in. Combination
of chip names you mentioned, confirms that they are trying
to reverse-engineer a military equipment, obtained from
the USSR - and I know almost for sure, what kind of the
equipment ...
Please, do not help them in doing this!!!
Please, do not publish any information on Soviet
military electronics, even if this electronics seems
to be old and outdated. Do not help Chinese to make it
modern and advanced.
I hope, you do not want to participate in any form,
in dangerous military preparations. Please, remember
that almost all kinds of terrorists all over the world
are equipped with Chinese clones of second-hand Soviet
weapons!
With best wishes
A.
Was it the CIA, was it the KGB or just a concerned citizen? I tried to find out, but communications were broken off quite soon after...
199608: Praise
The praise for this site keeps coming in!
Here is a very literate example:
Thank you for an amazing effort! You have created a resource of inestimable value to the electronics community.
David Gibson (dgibson@microconsultants.com, www.microconsultants.com)
199608: New logo
Finally a new logo in which not only the color of the letters has changed!
(As was done in the past, to denote a new version...)
Here are smaller versions in case you want to use them in your links
to the ChipDir:
(Links are still appreciated of course!)
199608: Thanks!
Date: 19960828
From: Marvin D. Thorell <mthorell@wi.net>
Organization: Electronic Systems of Wisconsin
To: Mail-a-note <ganswijk@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Chip Select
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I think this is the greatest thing since sliced toast! I used to swear
by the IC* Master for years. It was a great source of info for pin outs
and looking up unusual IC*'s, etc. Then it got less and less useful over
time. More and more advertising appeared. Pinouts began to dissappear.
I don't recall the last time I referenced it. I can't imagine that I
ever will, now that you have provided this wonderful reference.
Thanks again for making my day!
199606: New in the media
- The editor of the ChipDir (me) was awarded the DutchVosko award of fl 10000 (~$6000)for his work on the ChipDir.
- Because of this award there were articles about the ChipDir in theNRC and Trouw(major Dutch newspapers), the Computable (major Dutch computer newspapers)and the 'Daily Planet' and 'Planet Multimedia' (leading Dutch electronic newspapers)...More details.
- The adverts of Hitex, ICE and Keil in the ChipDir are drawing a lot of visitorsto their respective sites and therefore will be continued...
199604: New
New in the media
- The Chip Directory was mentioned in Elektuur and Elektor and probablyother local variations of Elektor in Europe.
- It was also mentioned in Midnight Engineering.(Thanks to Cera's Nina Pinto for the photocopy!)
New mirror sites
- The Australian mirror site has stopped because of a career move of the WWW master.Another Australian site will take over shortly.
- Two new sites in Italy will also start mirroring the ChipDir soon.
New in the ChipDir itself
- Not many improvements in the ChipDir itself. Hopefully 'Mail-a-note'works also under Lynx now. ;-)
- Some requested changes were added.
- Some more distributors were added.
- The telephone numbers of the Dutch distributors were checked and adaptedto the 10 April telephone number change.
- The chiplists have NOT been changed.
New links
- The number of external links to the ChipDir is currently about 700!
- The ChipDir is now an 'Official Source of Information' to the American Armyas can be seen at: fcim.csdc.com/partsinfo/parts.html
Compiler for this site
- The programs that compile this site have become very stable.
- The link database, that is dynamically built up and used is currentlyabout 6.5 Mbyte, while the total resulting site is about 7 Mbyte.
- It may not be surprising that in the meantime the source pages for thissite aren't written directly in HTML anymore, but in a specially developedlanguage that results in a much higher productivity.
- There still are 'funny links' unfortunately. :-(
- The development on the site is being done on a 166 MHz DEC Alpha processormotherboard running Unix, combined with an IBM harddisk (!) and a Philips21 inch monitor. Very nice to be able to cut-and-paste under XWindows and to havesuch a large screen to edit the chip listings...
- But for my real work (programming embedded controllers) I still prefer Xenix(=old version of SCO Unix) on a 486/33. (Call me old-fashioned ;-)
199602: New in this version
-- Newsflash --
- I just became a 'leisure time international non-stocking chips broker',by helping out an Australian electronics manufacturer, who was desperatelyseeking certain chips for his production lines.So if you need a serious amount of regular, obsolete or scarce componentsor if you have excess stock if any chips, please send me <ganswijk@xs4all.nl>an email, stating what you want...
- No cure no pay, but probably a cure!(They don't call me 'Master of All Chips', 'Dr. Chips' or'Professor Semiconductor' for nothing. ;-)
Changes in the tools
- The programs that compile this chip directory have been radically changed,you won't notice this, I hope.One small improvement that you can notice is the page modification date next to the logo.
- I hope, that there are less dangling links.
- I hope, there are less nonsensical internal links now, which you allprobably have been giggling about. ;-)
- I hope to be able to bring out versions on a more regular basis, so peoplethat propose changes don't have to wait so long on the results of their request...
Changes in the content
- The chip contents of this version has doubled from about 5000 chip entries toabout 10000. Especially a lot of Philips' chips have been added, but also chipsof Cypress, IDT, QSI, Siemens, Synergy and others.
- There are currently a lot of double entries though, but this is not my prime concern.
- The links to Xicor's data sheets have been corrected.
- Quality Semiconductor has sent a good list.(Sorry, that the new version took soo long. ;-)
- I have added some other data sheet links from other manufacturers.A lot of manufacturers have datasheets on-line now, as we all hoped they would.Some still require login procedures, but we can live with that, can't we?
- On the ext/index.htm page a lot of data has been added.
- A lot of links to chip manufacturers have been added/changed.
- The complete GIICM collectionof pin lay-outs has been added and linked.
- A lot of companies have registered and their data has been added.
- I just converted the list on the functional index page to a table.Anybody any comments?
- There still remains a lot to be added or changed...
The commercial aspect
- I can't live from the air, while everybody profits from the contentsof the chip directory.
- Other companies than AMD and Hitex, have already shown interest in advertising.But getting them to really do so, is too much work for the small advertisementsfees, that are reasonable.
- If you want to enable me, to spend more time on this Chip Directory, cashdonations in any currency (bills only!) are welcome at:
- Jaap van Ganswijk
- Huygensstraat 39
- NL 9727 JA Groningen
- The Netherlands
- If everybody who uses these pages would send $1 per month,I could easily work full time on it...
- For a donation of $20 or more, I'll send you the Hitex CDROM containingthis chip directory and 100 Mbyte of other processor and electronics stuff...
- It's also appreciated when you convince your employer or others to advertiseon these pages.
199602: One of the many people that was helped by this ChipDir wrote:
I've been looking for a phone number for Curtis Electromusic (now OnChip) for
weeks but found it within seconds here.
This is an incredibly useful resource.
Thank you.
Modesty forbids me to list any more of the 100's of thank-you letters here...
199601: The European semiconductor market
Revenues from sales in Europe (in billions of dollars)
Intel leads with a big difference the market for semiconductors in Europe.
In 1995 the worlds biggest manufacturer of processors sold for an amount of
3.5 billion dollars of chips in Europe. The total size of the European
semiconductor market amounts to 30 billion dollars according to market
researcher Dataquest.
(Translated from an article in the (Dutch) Automatisering Gids, ag@wkths.nl, 19960126.)
199509: New in this version
Changes in this version:
- Some of the chip lists have been cleaned up byDavid DiGiacomo <dd@adobe.com>, Thanks!.
- A lot of Maxim chips have been added by Hubert Hoefsloot<hhoef@knoware.nl>.
- I added a lot (all?) of Xicor's chips,thanks to Xicor's webmaster, they all have links tothe data sheets on Xicor's site. Good job Xicor!
- I haven't added a lot of Philips chips yet, since they haveso much chips... (Wait for the next version.)
- A lot of the Dallas chips now have links to thedata sheets on the Dallas site.
- The majority of the hundreds of suggestion and additions,that I received have been incorporated.(Sorry for those that I forgot, never hesitate to sendthem again, some things really get lost,within these magnitudes of data...)
- The size of many of the files has been reduced,to speed up the loading process.
- Currently this ChipDir can be found at eight locations,all over the world.
- From the log files it's clear, that all major chip, computerand electronics firms (among others) have employees consultingthese pages regularly.These pages are of course also popular at universities andall other kinds of sites all over the world.
- AMD was the first to realize, what a multitude of people visit these pages and decided to advertise here:
Check out their site also, you can win a 100 Mhz 486DX4!
- [Bragging mode on]These pages now contain about 14500lines with at least one link on them.I don't think, there are many sites that havemore. These links aren't laid by hand of course...[Bragging mode off]
- In the previous version of the ChipDir, the first link on themain page, was accidentally to the functional pages, via theerraneously linked word 'radio', which made these (new) pagesvery popular. (Y'all should read the texts, not just link-hop! ;-)
- Accidently (really!) the page with links to other chip siteswas missing from the previous version.
