ICL 8038 (Anyone used them?)

[Nils Pipenbrinck]

Hi there.. My first post on this list... I haven't ever built a synth
myself.. But hey.. Everyone has to start someday :)


I played around with various circuits in the last month and now I want to
start doing something usefull: A vco to play with. I own a hand full of the
ICL 8038 signal generators... Just wonder if they are worth anything for
diy-synth things..

The datasheed claims that the chip can be made temperature stable to a
minimum of 250 ppm/°C. Is this ok for a synth VCO? I don't have any
experiences in that area.. maybe 250 is acceptable.. maybe it'll sound
awfull detuned at one octave or two..

There's one thing that I like on the chip: In normal operation it runs quite
hot after a few seconds (even without any load attached to the outputs).. I
think this makes it even more independant from ambient temperature.

I might be completely wrong, and this chip is a total pice of junk... don't
know.. What's your oppinion on them?


btw..datasheet is here:
http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn2/fn2864/FN2864.pdf

A nice day to everyone,
      Nils Pipenbrinck