Hi BDD,
Quote:
so I can still surprise you
. But there is a reason for both points. The HCT (except for the HC138 in the IO-Extension, which is an error) are put at places where their speed is not the limiting factor. The ' 259, '175 just need to latch data that is present for at least 60ns, this is by far more than the minimum setup time. The '251 the same for getting D7 valid. The '595 is a little bit more critical, absolute maximum ratings would fail. But typical performance is sufficient for the current clock speed. So I used my old stock of HCT to build this part as I had no AC(T) devices (and for the '595 it does not exist). Still the design was for 6MHz and now at 8MHz it runs perfectly.
As for the dual 2691. At the moment there is only one installed. The reason for the dual 2691 is a rather lengthy story. First I planned to use W65C51, then I read about the bug. So I omitted serial ports at all on the main board. Then I started to build the computer and designed the power rails in a way that only three rows allowed 600-mil DIP cases and I used them all. Then I read about the 2691 and 2692 and thought very good, the 2691 is available in 300-mil (and did not read your post in more detail), so I reserved the space for it. Going back to an additional 600-mil row would have been a waste of space in the already cramped layout. At the end I had space for another 28-3 DIP case and planned to use it for another 2691. But I might drop this again.
You may think "bad planning" and you are right, but I wanted to start building the computer as it had many hen and egg problems and so I wanted to build up my experience as I built each block. The good side is, I learned a lot and it works better than expected