THE BISTABLE CIRCUIT

It would be very useful to have an electronic circuit that would:

Switch on an alarm if there was a fire and not switch it off until a reset switch was pressed.
Sound an alarm when someone tried to break into a car and keep it going until the owner came
and pressed a switch in the car.
Make a truck move backwards and forwards between two light beans.
Switch on a warning signal when a train passes a certain point in the track and only switch it off
when the train has passed another point.
Let a contestant in a quiz game press a switch to make a lamp go on but stop the other side
lighting their lamp until the quiz master resets the whole system.

An electronic circuit that will do this is called a BISTABLE CIRCUIT.

This is a circuit that is stable in one of two states and will not change its state until the other
switch is pressed.
The two inputs are made by two simple press switches, labelled S and R and the output is
Shown by the two LEDs. The switches are high when they are open and low when they are
closed. When they are released they will spring open on their own, becoming high.

That may sound a little difficult so we will look at how one version of a bistable circuit works.
The version that we are going to use is made from
two NAND gates connected together as shown in
the circuit below.
E
C
Call the output of NAND gate X, C and the output of A
X
NAND gate Y, D. S
To start with suppose that C = 1 and D = 0. That
B 1
means that LED 1 is ON and LED 2 is OFF. R and
S are open and so E and F are high (1). Y D
We call this the SET STATE.
F 2
Pressing or releasing S will not alter the output. R

Now suppose we press R. F becomes low (0) and so D becomes high. Input A to NAND gate X
now becomes 1 and so since E is already 1 the output from NAND gate X (C) goes low and LED
1 goes off and LED 2 comes on.

We call this the RESET STATE State E F C D

(pressing or releasing R will not alter the output). 0 1 1 1
SET 1 1 1 0
1 0 0 1
The truth table for the bistable circuit is RESET 1 1 0 1