TTL for Altair Clone

Can someone explain the main differences between those 3 families of
logic chips?

I read "standard TTL inputs are stable floating, will read high" and
that "you can't substitute modern TTL families for standard and expect
some old equipment to work"

A project I am working on right now is duplicating an Altair 4k DRAM
board. I'm preparing to place an order for the ICs. The manual calls
for 74L02, 74LS00, and a 7406 (for examples). Did they choose these
different styles (L vs. LS vs. 'nothing') because of cost or were they
really necessary?

The manual (link included below) is GREAT. I wish all manuals could be
this great. Not really...

For example Rev.0 of the board had a IC A, B, R as 74L04s and Rev2
changes B to an LS04.
Rev0 has a 7420 for J and rev2 has an L20.
Revo has a 7400 for L and K, rev2 has a 74LS for L and a 74L00 for K.

I suppose this could be due to wiring...

Do I really need to be this specific when ordering new logic chips?

I'm wondering if I need to special order these parts or if some of them
will interchange. Will an LS part work in place of an L, or L in place
of a 'nothing': LS work in the place of a nothing? Do you have any
suggestions on how I could find information on these old parts?
Searching in google only results in old stock results.


Here are 300dpi scans of the board and a datasheet in case you are
interested.

If you're interested in my Altair duplication project send me an e-mail
and I'll keep you updated.

1975 4k DRAM kit:
Top Assembled - http://www.stockly.com/images2/060108-75_Front.jpg
Top Bare - http://www.stockly.com/images2/060108-75_Front_Bare.jpg
Bottom Bare - http://www.stockly.com/images2/060108-75_Back_Bare.jpg
Manual -
http://www.stockly.com/images2/060108-75-Card_Docs-88-4kdra.pdf

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. DON'T GO THERE.

That board was a notorious piece of crap.

Nobody I knew who got one did anything besides mount it on their wall
as a reminder to avoid repeating doing something as stupid as buying it
and wasting their time trying to get it to work. After they replaced it
with a nice 8K static RAM card.

If you're looking for something cool to duplicate, try the Cromemco
Dazzler(?) color video display board set.

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

Is that why all of mine have been gutted of their parts?

The manual is sure pretty scary. This is Rev.2 and there are incorrect
labels on jumpers all over the place.

Is this 4k DRAM board decent? It doesn't look like a kit model.

http://www.stockly.com/images2/060108-76_Front.jpg

 

If all he wants is a cool project, he should build a TV typewriter from
scratch. ;-) (Admittedly, when I built mine, I had access to an EPROM
programmer and an almost infinite supply of chips. But pipelining the
character EPROM so it could operate at sane speeds was way kewl!)

Cheers!
Rich

 

Wow, it's been a long time since I've seen a MITS Altair memory board.
I sort of remember that MITS had a _lot_ of problems with their early
DRAM boards. I don't know if the board in the photo is one of the
flakey boards. SRAM is a lot easier to work with than DRAM. I bought
SRAM boards for my IMSAI (Altair clone) and never had memory problems.
-Dave Pollum

 

If you like, I think I can locate the schematic of the 64k dram board I used
in my Altair....you might modify it to use 8) 64k drams rather than the
4116 types.