It’s the flip-flop, and while its inventors likely couldn’t have imagined what they were starting, their innovation became the basic storage system for the ones and zeros of the digital age.

By the mid-20th century, the flip-flop was a breakthrough in circuit logic, which allowed data to be stored. The first flip-flops, known as "trigger circuits," were constructed with two transistors.

The decision to end Flip or Flop was a long time coming, according to a source familiar with the situation. Last week, PEOPLE confirmed that the popular HGTV series — which first debuted in 2013 ...