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.

The 555 timer is still the most popular chip that hobbyists add to their parts inventory (see rankings at https://partsbox.com/ecdb.html). I find this both interesting and curious — I'd say it has mostly nostalgic value at this point. Almost every practical problem today is better solved by something else. And yet it persists, I guess mostly because of beginner tutorials and first LED blinky circuits.

One nice thing about the 555 is that at least it aged well and still is very usable in those beginner tutorials. Unlike for example the uA741 which no one should use.

I was on my college fencing team. One summer, I had an internship at HP and they paired me with a grizzled old hardware designer, Fred, as a mentor to build a summer project. Fred had a lab bench with drawers overflowing with old resistors, caps, ICs, and even some tubes (“Fred, what the hell are you going to use those for?” “You never know. Tubes might come back!”). Fred had once accepted a promotion to be a manager and quickly renounced it because he hated it and just wanted to design hardware. I decided to build the electronic scoring system used in fencing matches. Our school had one professional system, but I figured I could replicate it for a lot less money. It was all based on a couple of 555s, some 74-series TTL counters, a few LEDs, buttons, and a speaker. Fred was the guy who showed me how a 555 worked. I built it, it worked, and the school used it for at least a year or two after I left. Happy memories. God bless Fred, wherever he is.

I got lucky I saw and screenshot when this had 222 points with 55 comments.

<http://ibb.co.com/1Y7QFB8N>

also today's date is 5.5. and the video is 5m55s

I have a Displate of a decapped 555 hanging near my EE workbench:

https://displate.com/displate/2002057

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.

As an electronics-enthusiast kid in the 70's, just before home computers showed up at all, I wished the 555 was for Time Travel