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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...

200112: Faster computer

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 Dutch Vosko award of fl 10000 (~$6000) for his work on the ChipDir.
Because of this award there were articles about the ChipDir in the NRC 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 visitors to their respective sites and therefore will be continued...

199604: New

New in the media

The Chip Directory was mentioned in Elektuur and Elektor and probably other 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 adapted to 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 Army as 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 currently about 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 this site aren't written directly in HTML anymore, but in a specially developed language 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 processor motherboard running Unix, combined with an IBM harddisk (!) and a Philips 21 inch monitor. Very nice to be able to cut-and-paste under XWindows and to have such 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 desperately seeking certain chips for his production lines. So if you need a serious amount of regular, obsolete or scarce components or 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 all probably have been giggling about. ;-)
I hope to be able to bring out versions on a more regular basis, so people that 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 to about 10000. Especially a lot of Philips' chips have been added, but also chips of 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 collection of 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 contents of 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 advertisements fees, that are reasonable.
If you want to enable me, to spend more time on this Chip Directory, cash donations 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 containing this chip directory and 100 Mbyte of other processor and electronics stuff...
It's also appreciated when you convince your employer or others to advertise on 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)

3.48 Intel

2.15 Motorola

2.13 Siemens

1.69 Philips

1.60 TI

1.59 ST

1.56 Samsung

1.52 NEC

1.10 Toshiba

1.03 Hitachi

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 by David 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 to the data sheets on Xicor's site. Good job Xicor!
I haven't added a lot of Philips chips yet, since they have so much chips... (Wait for the next version.)
A lot of the Dallas chips now have links to the data 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 send them 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, computer and electronics firms (among others) have employees consulting these pages regularly. These pages are of course also popular at universities and all 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 14500 lines with at least one link on them. I don't think, there are many sites that have more. These links aren't laid by hand of course... [Bragging mode off]
In the previous version of the ChipDir, the first link on the main page, was accidentally to the functional pages, via the erraneously linked word 'radio', which made these (new) pages very popular. (Y'all should read the texts, not just link-hop! ;-)
Accidently (really!) the page with links to other chip sites was missing from the previous version.

Ad for PCI video capturing boards by Dektec.

Goto:	Main	Mirror	About	Author
Register:	Yourself	Company
Feedback:	Correction	Addition	Question	Forum
Order:	Chips (Deutsch)	Chips (English)	Chips (Nederlands)

date	19960918
to	Jaap van Ganswijk
subject	Re: Identifying old Soviet chips

3.48	Intel
2.15	Motorola
2.13	Siemens
1.69	Philips
1.60	TI
1.59	ST
1.56	Samsung
1.52	NEC
1.10	Toshiba
1.03	Hitachi