Someone asked on the RSSC group about which logic chips to get (They just finished their digital logic class) Here is my top of the head response:
Standard IC’s hmmm. I am sure that this has been done before, but let me take my shot at it: The standard logic is the following:
7400 NAND
7402 NOR
7404 Inverter
7408 AND
7432 OR
7486 XOR
Here is a nice picture: http://www.phys.au.dk/elektronik/pinout.pdf Of these I use the 7404 and 7408 the most. I also use the 7414 Inverting Schmidt Trigger for cleaning up signals.
The flipflops are the 7473 (JK) and 7474 (D)
These all see some moderate amount of use.
The IO expanders: 74595 Serial In shift register http://profmason.com/?p=151
74165 Parallel In Shift Out http://profmason.com/?p=161
All the 74 series is TTL, which means it is expecting 5V power and off is 0->.8 V and ON is 2.2 -> 5V. All of these have CMOS equivalents the 4000 series. Which I use occasionally, but since all our micros (AVR and PICS) are 5V, it makes sense to stick with the dirt cheap 74xx series. The letters in the middle don’t make the much difference for our purposes. I generally just buy the cheapest(HC usually). I have some ANCIENT 7400 series chips (no letters) and at the low speeds of our micros they seem to run just fine.
Basically go to Futurelec (www.futurelec.com) All of the above chips are on the order of 0.30 cents. Just spend about $12 and get yourself five or so of each. Jameco sells an assortment of 74 series logic. Which I have bought when I am spending other peoples money.
FCB on ebay packages the 7400, 7402, 7404, 7408 and 7432 in lots of 10 for a reasonable price. So this might work if you don’t want to wait for futurelec.
Finally there is the other grab bag of stuff that gets used a lot.
555 Timer http://profmason.com/?p=404
MAX232 Serial/TTL interface http://profmason.com/?p=358
LM386 Audio Amplifier. http://profmason.com/?p=401
I am sure this could go on and on! Of course we should be migrating over to FPGAs and do everything in VHDL. I imagine that is what they are teaching in school these days instead of the 74xx series.