Some years ago, all of the radio magazines had many articles with
40673's. About every third article had at least one (slight
exaggeration).

Jack W8RAG


That's not really a surprise. It's always been a constant that
a handful of parts are used in the magazines. By sticking to
a few parts, it guarantees that you will be able to get those
parts, since small companies that deal with the hobbyist will
carry those parts. And then in turn it guarantees that the
parts will be used.

Besides, many articles were traditionaly a variant on something
that had already been published. So someone looks in the magazines,
and picks parts (or even whole circuits) based on what they see,
and then write about it.

I've always tended to look at those common parts as a designator
for a generic category of something. So a 40673 is a dual gate
MOSFET, and likely some other similar part will fit the situation.
After all, if someone was going for extreme performance, it would
not be a common part.

Michael VE2BVW
=====================================

That's a good idea except that few hams have the expertise to modify
a circuit for a different IC even if it is similar.

Jack W8RAG