>I have no arguments with the 877A. I think it's a great part.
>But for some reason hobby folks starting out seem to want a
>smaller package. I never figured out why.

Probably because TTL chips came in 14/16 pin packages, and when you went to
28/40 pin packages you were getting into "heavy metal" chips with lots of
functionality.

14/16 pin chips had functionality levels that you could understand, larger
chips had lots of stuff inside that needed fancy degrees to understand and
you couldn't alter, apart from memory chips.

It may be a historical perspective, but to a certain degree for new people
it will still hold.

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