Re: Fast sampler

On 3/6/25 3:04 PM, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 6 Mar 2025 14:12:14 -0800, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:
 

On 3/6/25 12:51 PM, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 6 Mar 2025 12:33:35 -0800, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:
>

On 3/6/25 8:29 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:

[...]

And what's Standard ECL now? It was Motorola 10k back when I was young,
and Motorola/Philips/Fairchild 100k a few years later. Motorola ECLinPs
took over a about when I stopped using it, about when I started posting
here, some twenty years ago.
>

>
AFAIK it's 100E but I have not used any in ages because I always found
them overpriced. I don't like it when two ICs cost more than a crate of
beer :-)

>
MC10EPxx, SiGe Eclips Lite.
>
Really fast and really expensive is Gigacomm, which is actually CML.
The NB7V52M flop is only about $13 in quantity.
>

>
So far I've only needed "semi-analog", meaning just one bit and then I
did it using RF transistors. It is amazing, you can buy >100GHz fT for
less than 20 cents in qties.
>
When I was a kid I had to shell out around $3 for an AF116 Ge-transistor
that had an fT of 75MHz. In 1970's Dollars, which really hurt. Digital
wasn't any better. I needed a 1kbit RAM for a project and that set me
back about 10 bucks. It still works.

 My first transistor was a Raytheon CK722 germanium. I think Ft was
measured in KHz. It cost $7, about a month's allowance, or dinner for
two at a decent restaurant.
 

Now you've revealed your age bracket :-)
I salvaged some German OC-series Ge-transistors out of discarded gear.
https://www.cedist.com/products/transistor-oc45-valvo-germanium-so-2-glass-case-pnp
You could scrape off the black paint and clear glass showed up, with the bare transistor inside. That way I had free opto-transistors that could be used for really cool stuff. LDRs were very expensive over there so that helped a lot.

I got tubes for free.
 

Same here. In Germany we had regular bulk waste days where people placed their non-working TV sets and similar large items at the curb for pickup. I carted a lot of that home, all on the baggage rack of my bicycle. Some TVs I repaired, others I used for scavenging. Unfortunately the German ones had a suicide chassis (hot) and the tube filaments were all in series. 300mA but the voltages varied widely. So I had to rewind transformers for the filaments. Finding old radios brought easier tubes with 6.3V filaments but that also meant a fierce scavenger competition. Who ever got up earlier or had a faster bike won.
--
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/