A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer
59 comments
·September 6, 2025ellingsworth
Thanks for sharing.
Similarly, Margo Selby crafted a very large, vibrant 16m textile installation titled ‘moon landing’ based on the work of Navajo women who wove the integrated computer circuits and memory cores that enabled the 1969 moon landing. Until recently it was on display at Canterbury Cathedral. It is accompanied by a musical composition for strings by Helen Caddick.
segfault99
Back in the 1980s2H there was a brief fashion trend of woollen knit sweaters with IC mask type patterns. Guessing related to designers playing around with design software and knitting tech made possible by microprocessor revolution.
BobbyTables2
We’ve come full circle - knitting tech was the basis for early computing machines!
vishnugupta
Jacquard loom!
cellarmation
Yes, and early core memory was also woven by hand. I am not sure if this was just for core rope memory, or if it was more widespread than that.
indigodiddy
[dead]
djmips
This is how we pass our chip designs to our descendents so they may rebuild civlization.
flitzofolov
Reminds me of "A Canticle for Leibowitz".
MisterTea
A very inaccurately timed civilization.
snickerbockers
Thats on you for not consulting the tolerance band on your resistors.
MisterTea
I'm reminded of this: https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/analog/article...
datameta
Imagining an ancient theological order with ranks based on color coding...
kens
Author here if anyone has questions...
amelius
Yes, my question is: did the weaver have any questions?
kens
Marilou Schultz asked me to suggest some chips that would make good weavings, and I suggested the 555, among other chips. She also had questions about the different colors and textures in the chip. She notices a lot more about the colors than I do; I look at a chip in terms of functionality and connectivity and don't pay attention to the colors.
mark-r
Speaking of colors, you mentioned the significance of the purple/lavender in the weaving. But I don't see any in the pictures! What am I missing?
sophacles
Any question I have starts with "tell me a lot about the Navajo people"... so no questions for here. Just want to say: good article.
kens
I went into a lot more of the Navajo history in my previous article [1] so I didn't repeat it in the new article. The quick summary is that the Navajo suffered a century of oppression, were forced off their land in the Long Walk, and had their sheep slaughtered in the 1930s in the Navajo Livestock Reduction. In the 1960s, the Navajo had 65% unemployment, $300 per capita income, and lacked basic infrastructure. Various groups looked to industrialization as a solution, so Fairchild opened an IC manufacturing facility on Navajo land in 1965, employing 1200 Navajo workers and becoming the nation's largest non-government employer of American Indians. The plant was generally considered a success, but in 1975, Fairchild had business problems and laid off 140 Navajo employees. Things went downhill and a radical group, AIM (American Indian Movement), took over the plant with rifles. The armed occupation ended peacefully after a week, but Fairchild closed the plant and moved production to Asia.
[1] https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-ship...
estearum
Just to be clear since "oppression" is a very broad term: the Navajo (and most other Native American tribes) are victims of genocide. It was a far, far, far more systematic destruction effort than mere marginalization.
Children were stolen, forbidden from learning their native language, killed en masse, food supplies were destroyed, land was continuously taken from them the second anything valuable was discovered on it, etc. etc.
It's really horrific stuff and the effects are still extremely clear on the reservations today.
sophacles
Oh wow, thanks for the info!
SecretDreams
Cost for a piece like this? It's striking!
mkl
Fascinating related article about a weaving of a Pentium (linked near the bottom): https://www.righto.com/2024/08/pentium-navajo-fairchild-ship..., discussion a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41418301 (84 comments)
RobertEva
Delightful crossover: silicon layout turned into textile logic. The 555 is perfect for this—bold pinout, big blocks (comparators + RS latch), and routing that reads from a distance. Add a tiny legend and it’s a great teaching piece.
crucialfelix
I saw her work at MoMA, loved it. She's 70? That's even more awesome.
johnklos
This is beautiful. Thank you, Ken, and thank you, Marilou, for sharing :)
robertlutece
Reminded me of this “Navajo weaver inspired by video games”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrDZIyYSMfI
drob518
The 555 timer is iconic. Just iconic. I wonder how many billions of them have been shipped over the years?
ajxs
It's really fortunate that the history of the 555 timer is really well documented. Its inventor, Hans Camenzind, wrote several books, and even had a Youtube channel in his later years[1]. It's a shame that so many iconic chips that have changed the world aren't so well documented. I went down a real rabbithole a while ago trying to find in-depth information about the Hitachi HD44780. I couldn't even decisively pin down exactly what year it was first manufactured. It's interesting to think of microchip designs as a kind of artistic legacy: Chips like the 555 have had an enormous impact on modern history.
userbinator
I couldn't even decisively pin down exactly what year it was first manufactured
Likely 1985.
https://www.crystalfontz.com/blog/look-back-tech-history-hd4...
ajxs
I did see this article when I was researching, but it's incorrect. You can find references to the HD44780 in earlier catalogs. The earliest reference I can find is 1981: https://archive.org/details/Hitachi-DotMarixLiquidCrystalDis...
It's also referenced in this catalog from 1982: https://bitsavers.org/components/hitachi/_dataBooks/1982_Hit...
Likely the first year of manufacture was 1981/82.
crb3
Try 1972; taped out in 1971.
subharmonicon
Saw an exhibit with some of her work, I think in Albuquerque. Was surprised/delighted to see weavings of circuits.
What fascinating glimpse at a part of history that I had no clue about. The main reason Navajo (and other nations) native Americans figured in my 'history of the world' so far was the WWII era communications saga.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indi...