A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer

[ellingsworth]

Thanks for sharing.

Similarly, Margo Selby crafted a very large, vibrant 16m textile installation titled ‘moon landing’ based on the work of Navajo women who wove the integrated computer circuits and memory cores that enabled the 1969 moon landing. Until recently it was on display at Canterbury Cathedral. It is accompanied by a musical composition for strings by Helen Caddick.

https://www.margoselby.com/pages/moon-landing

[segfault99]

Back in the 1980s2H there was a brief fashion trend of woollen knit sweaters with IC mask type patterns. Guessing related to designers playing around with design software and knitting tech made possible by microprocessor revolution.

[BobbyTables2]

We’ve come full circle - knitting tech was the basis for early computing machines!

[djmips]

This is how we pass our chip designs to our descendents so they may rebuild civlization.

[flitzofolov]

Reminds me of "A Canticle for Leibowitz".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz

[MisterTea]

A very inaccurately timed civilization.

[chairmansteve]

Needs to be stone monoliths!

[kens]

Author here if anyone has questions...

[amelius]

Yes, my question is: did the weaver have any questions?

[sophacles]

Any question I have starts with "tell me a lot about the Navajo people"... so no questions for here. Just want to say: good article.

[SecretDreams]

Cost for a piece like this? It's striking!

[mkl]

Fascinating related article about a weaving of a Pentium (linked near the bottom): https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-ship..., discussion a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41418301 (84 comments)

[jacquesm]

What fascinating glimpse at a part of history that I had no clue about. The main reason Navajo (and other nations) native Americans figured in my 'history of the world' so far was the WWII era communications saga.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indi...

[RobertEva]

Delightful crossover: silicon layout turned into textile logic. The 555 is perfect for this—bold pinout, big blocks (comparators + RS latch), and routing that reads from a distance. Add a tiny legend and it’s a great teaching piece.

[crucialfelix]

I saw her work at MoMA, loved it. She's 70? That's even more awesome.

[charcircuit]

The continued popularity of this chip confuses me. I don't understand why it didn't get forgotten decades ago as microcontrollers became common place. Though compared to the Pentium talking on older designs is likely faster to make, so I wonder if he markets himself to an older audience who is nostalgic for these ancient chips.

[artyom]

You may be right about nostalgic reasons, but as a freshman during the emergence of microcontrollers, I've asked the same question to and old professor, in the sense of "why discrete digital electronics is still widely used?".

His response still resonates with me today: a military grade 555 would work in extreme conditions (e.g. heat), would last pretty much forever, would consume virtually no power, and will still cost you a penny.

Sometimes that's exactly what you need. Reliability, durability and cost trumps the power of programmability.

[segfault99]

The world would be a much sadder, drearier place without the 555. That's the nostalgia part out of the way.

Really it's such a useful almost universal lego block of a component that it's hard to imagine it going away anytime soon. Sure microcontrollers are as cheap as chips these days, but you get a lot more with them. Do I need to say that sometimes more is less? Can think of scenarios where you absolutely don't want to see a chip containing firmware/code which needs auditing and locking down.

[snickerbockers]

Well even if we assume there's a suitable 8-pin microcontroller which doesn't cost more than the 555, merely loading the firmware onto the microcontroller is going to add significant cost and complexity to the manufacturing stage. Also the microcontroller would be far more sensitive to power supply inadequacies because its state consists of much more than a capacitor and a flipflop.

[moron4hire]

Because it's fun and there are many readily available DIY designs that use it.

[adrian_b]

The original bipolar variant of NE555 is likely to have a lifetime of many decades, if not more than a hundred years, even when operated continuously in harsh environments.

A modern CMOS microcontroller has a much more limited lifetime. Depending on model, you can hope for 10 years or 20 years, but not much more than that because very small MOS transistors and flash memory cells eventually die, unlike the more robust bipolar ICs (whose active regions are buried in the semiconductor crystal, not located at its surface, like in MOS devices).

[johnklos]

This is beautiful. Thank you, Ken, and thank you, Marilou, for sharing :)

[drob518]

The 555 timer is iconic. Just iconic. I wonder how many billions of them have been shipped over the years?

[ajxs]

It's really fortunate that the history of the 555 timer is really well documented. Its inventor, Hans Camenzind, wrote several books, and even had a Youtube channel in his later years[1]. It's a shame that so many iconic chips that have changed the world aren't so well documented. I went down a real rabbithole a while ago trying to find in-depth information about the Hitachi HD44780. I couldn't even decisively pin down exactly what year it was first manufactured. It's interesting to think of microchip designs as a kind of artistic legacy: Chips like the 555 have had an enormous impact on modern history.

1: https://www.youtube.com/@hcamen

[robertlutece]

Reminded me of this “Navajo weaver inspired by video games”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrDZIyYSMfI

[IIAOPSW]

This is so cool. So if they used twists of steel wires or similar as string for the white parts, they could have a functional circuit.

[xvedejas]

They'd still need the electrical components, such as the transistors and passive components

[subharmonicon]

Saw an exhibit with some of her work, I think in Albuquerque. Was surprised/delighted to see weavings of circuits.

[kogasa240p]

Very cool art piece!

[fnord77]

be cool if the creator used semi-conducting threads and it actually worked

[zem]

alan dean foster's "cyber way" is a somewhat thematic sf novel

[manoDev]

This is the kind of thing that can start conspiracy theories of time travelers :)

[sho_hn]

My immediate thought was "Nazca lines of a 555? Yes".

I have a Displate of a 555 in my little maker corner someone gifted me once: https://eikehein.com/assets/images/makercorner.jpg

[swayvil]

That's a pretty darn cool looking thing.

Funny how, guided by pure mechanical necessity, pretty stuff can arise.

I've always thought that clockwork, chips and other machines were pretty.

And fractals. ( https://fleen.org/i40.png ) And plants and animals too. And weathered rock.

Which leads me to consider what isn't pretty. Naivety?