I'd never heard of Bob Widlar before, but it's great to see someone praised for significant innovation in an esoteric field. It's great to see such specialized work appreciated. It's also interesting, and kind of weird, to see a giant of Silicon Valley engineering design whose education was primarily "home grown," as contrasted with the highly academic engineers of today.
Some while ago I wrote a blog post about how fantastic app note 47 was; very much "nothing like this will be built again". For its unassuming title it is a more instructive read than quite a lot of books on opamps.
