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Electronic digital building blocks
Gretag-Bausteinsystem (Gretag Building Block System), was a series of
pre-assembled digital building blocks, developed in the early 1960s by
Gretag AG
in Regensdorf (Switzerland). These electronic circuit blocks are
commonly seen as the forerunners of the Integrated Circuit (IC), and are similar
to the Circuit Blocks
made by Philips, and the
FLYBALL modules
made by the NSA.
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The image on the right shows examples of the Gretag building blocks, as
they were printed on the cover of a folder with datasheets, probably from
the early 1970s [A]. They were available for different speeds,
known as 10, 20 and 30 series.
A patent for their construction was filed in
1964 in Canada, by Kurt Ehrat and Dieter Eckstein on behalf of
Gretag AG.
It was issued in June 1967, with a priority date of 5 December 1963.
Nevertheless it is unlikely that their claim would have held if tried
in court, as both Philips and the NSA already had them on the market for
some years.
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In such case, the claim would have been declared invalid due to
prior art. The
construction of Gretag's blocks is very similar to the NSA's
FLYBALL modules,
although this may not have been known to Gretag at the time, as they were
used in (secret) military equipment. As far as we know, the
NSA never patented
the FLYBALL modules,
but a patent for a similar construction —
which is also known as a cordwood construction — was
filed in the US in 1960 by Vito Elarde [3].
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The Gretag digital building blocks were first used in the earliest design
of the TC-534 — Gretag's first fully electronic cipher
machine — developed for use by the Swiss Army.
The image on the right shows one of its circuit boards, which holds no less
than 18 of these blocks.
In order to generate some
return on investment,
Gretag decided to make this technology available to other manufacturers
— as OEM parts — but it remains to be seen whether this was a success,
as other parties had better distribution means.
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Companies like Philips
already had similar products
on the market for several years and were making the move to the
new Integrated Circuits (ICs) — based on
TTL technology — that had just become available.
The TC-534 encryptor was later redesigned
with TTL
technology as well [1].
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10 50 kHz 20 100 kHz 30 1 MHz
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DC-10 Decimal Counter FF-20 FLIP-FLOP PAG-24 Dynamic Quad AND gate NOR-I-25 5-input NOR gate with inverted output RD-20 Reset Impulse Driver PD-20 Impulse Driver 2/NOR-23 Dual 3-input NOR gate
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 31 March 2019. Last changed: Saturday, 13 January 2024 - 15:24 CET.
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