The uA741 Operational Amplifier was a widely popular op amp in the 1960s and 1970s. It is used as an example in many tutorials, including the Wikipedia entry on Operational Amplifiers (at least at the time of this writing, May 2012). Bipolar circuit design may be less familiar to many 21st century readers, so here (above) is a CMOS version of the design.
The 741 architecture leaves little headroom for voltage swing. That was not a problem when analog circuits had +/-15V supplies. Modern analog CMOS or mixed signal designs usually have supplies in the 1V to 3.3V range. Other architectures are much better for low voltage. So it is not CMOS that killed the 741 architecture, it is low voltage.
If you are nerdy enough to want the details, read the history chapter of Op Amp Applications, Edited by Walt Jung, Analog Devices, Inc.
For an easy intro to CMOS amplifiers, Gray & Meyer's 1982 tutorial on MOS Op Amps is reported to be one of the most popular papers on IEEE Xplore.
