Technology historian Louis Panix has been showcasing various integrated circuits (ICs) from the 1970s and 1980s, demonstrating them in simple circuits and comparing them with modern components.
In his latest video, he attempts to use an obsolete XOR gate to create a simple frequency doubler, but runs into difficulties as the gate is “super obsolete” and doesn’t work at high frequencies.
Panix explains how an RC network can be used to create a simple edge detector, and therefore a pulse generator, and uses this to build a working circuit with the obsolete XOR gate, with a few adjustments.
He concludes by contrasting this type of analogue frequency doubling with the much more common microwave frequency doublers that use non-linear elements to generate harmonics.
