I bought some of these for use in prototypes of a system I have been designing that uses RS-485 for communication. I have not actually used them in application yet, but I thought I'd at least make people aware of what they are getting if they buy these.
For my application, I initially bought some of TI's SN65HVD12IDREP devices based on some parametric searching. They are not cheap and I bought these SN75176 from Tayda to avoid squandering them.
You can do a lot with these, but let me list some important limitations and comparisons:
- It's 5V-only device (my application is 3.3V)
- You need to provide external fail-safe biasing
- It uses quite a bit of power even with outputs disabled
- I *BELIEVE* they are roughly the same speed (the 3.3V device I have has multiple speed options)
- Similar output current capability
- Modern ICs present a smaller load (fractional, like 1/8) to the bus, allowing more transceivers to exist on one bus.

The take-away here is that this is a tried and true device, but being as old as it is, it wastes a lot of quiescent power. I would definitely not use this for battery-powered applications. You also need to remember to include fail-safe biasing externally.