I'm quite new to the world of electronics, but when I showed interest my father gave me a bunch of old ICs and stuff he had collected in his days as a TV repairman. Among dozens of useful stuff I found a couple of tidbits that I haven't been able to identify. Picture (of admittedly inferior quality) attached. Can anyone offer some insight as to what these things are?
The leftmost one is a NEC "PRAD-2" chip with 8 strangely spaced legs.
The middle one is a golden IC marked with "S5400F" (I'm suspecting that this might be a quad NAND gate)
The rightmost one is a strange little thingy that came with a small plastic cap with two holes in it.
Any takers? I can dig out a better camera if anyone needs or would like a closer look.
While the last one sure does look like a spark gap of sorts, the somewhat flimsy construction suggests (to me, at least) that it's not. Its base and "cap" is made of pretty thin plastic, and I always envisioned spark gaps to be somewhat more sturdy-looking. Also, would a spark inside a tiny "box" be useful anything? (Measure the resistance of the air and detect the presence of gas? Generate ozone? I have no idea. )