The 74F373 is an Octal Transparent Latch with 3-state outputs, or, simply put, eight bits of memory. It belongs to the well-known 7400 series of logic ICs which were used in pretty much all digital electronics until the 1990s. They are still widely used in modern designs, though they are rapidly losing ground to newer technologies such as microcontrollers and FPGAs. This particular example was housed in a ceramic DIP, which is quite easy to open, leaving the IC intact.

This is a picture of the complete IC. The wires coming out are called bondwires. These connect the chip to the outside world, and are usually made of gold. This one uses aluminium bondwires however.

Note the symmetry in the design: there are of course eight identical units inside. We are looking at four of them here. We can also clearly see from all the dirt that my room is not a cleanroom :-)