PART FINDER FRIDAY – The 74HC165! Here’s another favorite logic chip (and the fraternal twin to the 74HC595), the 74HC165!

Most people are familiar with the 74HC595 as a chainable serial-to-parallel converter, letting you add tons of outputs to a microcontroller with ease. The ’165 does the opposite, it is a chainable parallel-to-serial converter, so you can add tons of *inputs*. Great when you have a ton of keys or buttons you want to interface to a microcontroller, just don’t forget to use external pullups!

And if you’re liking this logic, dont forget to also check out the Logic Contest over at dangerous prototypes!