[sdiy] 40106 astable multivibrator - origins

[Ben Bradley]

So when was the 40106 first made?

I have "Understanding CMOS Integrated Circuits" Copyright 1975 that I
bought new in 1976 (!). A few pages in back have pinouts of some
common CMOS chips. It doesn't show a 40106 but I'm sure this book was
not meant to have a complete list of CMOS chips available at the time.

After the gratuitous-and-obligatory-at-the-time chapters on fabs and
"how to make CMOS ICs" (which is pretty useless - how many readers are
going to start making CMOS chips from reading this book? I think very
little of these first 90-odd pages are needed to understand the rest
of the book), the first schematic is the common RC two-inverter
oscillator, two cascaded inverters with a cap and two resistors. So
much for starting of a book on digital logic with a purely digital
logic schematic.

I also have the 1975 RCA "COS/MOS Integrated Circuits" databook
SSD-203C, The only Schmitt trigger it lists is 4093. It does show a
schematic of a gated "astable oscillator" for Fig. 19, p. 383 with
single R from output to one input, single C from that input to ground,
and the other input labeled "TO CONTROL SIGNAL OR VDD." Might this be
the first circuit for a CMOS Schmitt trigger single-R-C oscillator?

A little googling finds a pdf of this 1975 databook here:
http://www.introni.it/pdf/RCA%20-%20COSMOS%20Integrated%20Circuits.pdf

Looking online, this TI datasheet (it says "Data sheet acquired from
Harris Semiconductor" - did Harris get RCA's parts at one point, or
were they both making this part at the same time?) has the exact same
schematic shown in Fig. 18 p. 4:
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cd4093b.pdf