Comments on: Write only memory https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/09/23/write-only-memory/ All about electronics and circuit design Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:47:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.14 By: Tom Adams https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/09/23/write-only-memory/comment-page-1/#comment-1846708 Thu, 20 Feb 2025 01:16:01 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/blog/?p=5932#comment-1846708 Tomi, I have an original copy and I STILL get a chuckle when I see it. I have a lot of this old stuff. I was a young engineer in 1972 and was designing Signetics TTL chips, maybe 8000 series, into a prototype/test digital sonar receiver and other minicomputer interfaces. I looked on eBay just now to see if anyone was selling these data sheets, hoping to reap something for my “pack rat gene” but no luck. How many do you think were originally printed?

]]> By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/09/23/write-only-memory/comment-page-1/#comment-1316043 Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:00:40 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/blog/?p=5932#comment-1316043 Old press release on WOM:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85027770/TINA%27s%20funny%20pages%2C%20The%20original%20papers%20on%20the%20invention%20of%20the%20best%20electro.pdf

]]> By: Tomi Engdahl https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/09/23/write-only-memory/comment-page-1/#comment-1316042 Tue, 16 Dec 2014 12:59:48 +0000 http://www.epanorama.net/blog/?p=5932#comment-1316042 The Joker Behind the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory Chip Hoax
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/12/16/0632227/the-joker-behind-the-signetics-25120-write-only-memory-chip-hoax

engineers and hobbyists alike have enjoyed the classic 1972 April Fool’s joke by Signetics of the Signetics 25120 Write-Only Memory chip
Now it seems that the previously anonymous practical joker has identified himself

The Real Story of the Write-Only-Memory (WOM)
http://www.sigwom.com/?page_id=17

I worked at Signetics as an engineer from about 1967 to 1979. One of my tasks in the Signetics MOS marketing group was to create data sheets for new products.

I wrote the 25120 WOM data sheet, copyrighted in 1972, as a lark to see what a Signetics WOM specification might look like. I used a humorous EIMAC specification as a basis.

I had always admired an EIMAC high powered vacuum tube spoof data sheet put out by Eitel-McCullough,Inc. I saw it when I was a teen Ham Operator and must have memorized it. That was in the late 1940’s.

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