Comment by peteforde

I can actually clear a lot of that up. ChatGPT has accumulated a significant amount of ambient knowledge about what I'm working on and how I typically progress through asking questions, so the path isn't as blue sky as it appears.

For example, I'm working with a specialty SPCO switch IC that runs at 5V. There's never been and likely never will be a 3.3V version of the AS16M1. Being able to drive the switch (which functions like a shift register) from my ESP32 is top-of-mind.

The HCT125 being active low is directly responding to my question about why to choose it vs the 126 version; since the board I'm studying (which again, it has seen) uses 125s, it's reasonable to wonder why they'd choose one over the other.

Overall, the tone of chats on EE topics tend to be task-focused with permission to go on interesting side quests. I'm trying to get stuff done with room for relevant exploration along the way.

Does that change anything for you?