I used one of these to win an inter-school science competition when I was ~13. It was a minute timer. The competition board doubted I had built it all myself, so they plonked it down in front of me and demanded I draw the circuit diagram in front of them.
As a kid I didn’t understand what the 555 timer chip on the Apple II disk controller was doing but I learned the hard way that when you misalign the pins on the drive connector cable and the 555 chip releases its blue smoke you can’t use the drive anymore :(
5:55 video released on May 5th, as per description :)
For something feeling like a fairly specific IC, I remember seeing many projects that use it throughout the years in wacky ways - and seeing it makes me happy to know that the sentiment for this little piece is shared.
I still have the Forrest Mims III Radio Shack "555 Engineer's Mini-Notebook" somewhere in my basement. And rumor has it that Sammy Hagar can't drive 555 because his car just isn't fast enough!
The Mims books are fantastic. As a kid I collected every mini notebook and the green Radio Shack "Getting Started in Electronics." They were my intro to electronics along with the Radio Shack kits.
I also remember being amazed, and did a forehead slap, when an old army bomb disposal man explained how, what I thought was an innocent device, was used by the IRA in bombs.
I recently dug one out to use as a hardware shutdown timer to power off an rpi's PSU once it has presumably halted without having to resort to a dedicated MCU for the task.
Back when radio shack still existed I would buy a 555 timer during every visit. I live collecting them and still have a bunch somewhere stored. I continue to do it with the 328p arduino boards as well whenever I visit my local microcenter.
When I was a camp counselor in my 20s I designed a one-octave "piano" out of one of these, a battery, paperclips for keys, and a shitload of resistors. We had the kids build them on proto board. They sounded harsh but you could play Mary Had a Little Lamb on them!
Can't watch it right now, but upvoted for Dave Jones. He's taught me so much. Absolute treasure, and the host of one of the last great active forums. Thank you for not blackholing all that info on the disaster that is Discord, like so many other communities.
See: https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...
For something feeling like a fairly specific IC, I remember seeing many projects that use it throughout the years in wacky ways - and seeing it makes me happy to know that the sentiment for this little piece is shared.
There's a lesson in there somewhere.
https://hackaday.com/2011/08/05/building-a-computer-out-of-5...
PDF version here https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Bernards-And-Babani/Babani/...
Though surprising the family at dinner with a small explosion was a much more innocent purpose.
https://displate.com/displate/2002057
Maybe it could work if you used 5 timers?