On 18 Apr 2005 13:25:52 -0700, "
wrote:

I'm trying to help my son with his electronics lab work for school. The
project is to set up an exclusive or gate, an SN or DM 7486 and apply a
1.0KHZ square wave at a TTL level,

Are you aware of the 7486 pinout oddities?
There are several flavours and they do not share the same pinout!

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok