While the 555 is, indeed, a tad 'long in the tooth' - it does provide 'nubes' with the experience (limited though it may be) of design as opposed to mere programming -- IMO - Reason enough for it's continued existence!

As to the 741? Agreed! 'tis long past time it 'rested in peace'!!!

Best regards
HP

Re: LM741

For the classroom, the LM741's limitations are part of the lessons.

 

..............For the classroom, the LM741's limitations are part of the lessons.

Now this is a very good use for the 741, a training tool to teach the differences between op-amps.

 

Does the LM741 work any different than most other op amps?

Sry to say yes! 741 has the terrible input impedance the terrible slew rate and input range not extend to negative rail so irritating for single ended uses! And that's just me getting started I say HP and others right! 741 needs be euthanized before it drives newbies to suicide! But I agree about 555 being useful part for education and the few practical applications

 

Does the LM741 work any different than most other op amps?

No. In fact it is a good starting point for understanding the standard voltage-feedback opamp because it has way fewer internal components than the newer parts do. And other than its input stage noise, its other limitations (and don't misunderstand me, there are a few) can be mitigated with external design techniques, another excellent learning exercise. And because it has those offset adjust pins, even the input stage noise and distortion can be fixed. If you are going to be an analog designer, everything about how the 741 works and does not work will be useful down the road when some other wonder-part doesn't behave.

Proclaiming that the 741 is "not as good as" a contemporary part from Analog Devices or Linear Tech is an example of several rhetorical fallacies (such as false equivalence) and at least one cognitive bias. People do this with great seriousness to inflate their own sense of superiority, but to me they look shallow, inexperienced, and insecure. Of course some tech thingy today is better than a previous part *47 years* ago. It better be. But to use that as the basis for evaluating past components as "horrible" or "garbage" is immature and unaware. Guitar effects boxes still are designed around 741's and 308's (!!!) because people like the classic "sound" of these devices.

To paraphrase a dead guy, those who don't respect the past are dumb.

Or:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana (1863-1952), dead Harvard philosopher, 1905
The Life of Reason (1905-1906), Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

ak

 

.....................Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it............

These are very fine words.

......But to use that as the basis for evaluating past components as "horrible" or "garbage" is immature and unaware.......

These are also good words.

Use your intellect to design, not your emotions or some biased attitude that you got from a post on a forum. Do good science.

 

Now this is a very good use for the 741, a training tool to teach the differences between op-amps.

I very much agree I would not use the LM741 for any new design, but for learning op amp characteristics it is certainly the one to compare others against.

 

I would not call the 723 obsolete by any means. It is one of my go-to components for test fixturing signal injection.

It is simple to set a voltage and current limit (LDO, it's a regulator!) while adding an on-off transistor to (one ripped from the headlines use) allow a 5V micro to control a 28V signal.

That way you get a rugged signal a bad device under test can't destroy while limiting the secondary damage it can cause in a bad device under test.

 

Proclaiming that the 741 is "not as good as" a contemporary part from Analog Devices or Linear Tech is an example of several rhetorical fallacies (such as false equivalence) and at least one cognitive bias. People do this with great seriousness to inflate their own sense of superiority, but to me they look shallow, inexperienced, and insecure. Of course some tech thingy today is better than a previous part *47 years* ago. It better be. But to use that as the basis for evaluating past components as "horrible" or "garbage" is immature and unaware. Guitar effects boxes still are designed around 741's and 308's (!!!) because people like the classic "sound" of these devices.

AK Sry but psychobabble not make a lmc6482 purse out of a lm741's ear!

 

Thank you for making my point crystal clear.

ak

 

You're welcome!

 

LM723 rocks and LM741 sucks.

 

LM723 rocks and LM741 sucks.

Why do so many people seem to be overly obsessed with good/bad, right/wrong, best/worst, ...? Few things in life are black and white. The 741 was a very good opamp when it was introduced. It's deficiencies are what caused "better" ones to be developed; as was the case with the 741 being an improvement over the 709. Without the 741, you might be bogged down trying to compensate your opamp circuits.

When you use "modern" opamps, you and they are standing on the shoulders of Giants; give the Giants some credit for having done something that no one had considered doing before.

If you're repairing a circuit with a defective LM741; the best, possibly only, replacement would be a 741...

 

too bad I do not get to replace a 741

 

Read the comment at my post, here:

 

AK Sry but psychobabble not make a lmc6482 purse out of a lm741's ear!

Describe the benefits of RRIO without contrasting it against one that is not. Learning how a circuit using an LM741 works can be applied to a circuit using an LMC6482. The basics are the same.