Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard?

[Jasen Betts]

On 2014-09-15, Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

sometimes.

> If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This stuff. "multicomp n254-899" stripboard

available from farnell(etc), and occasionally resold on amazon.

It's tinned, so solders more easily than the bare copper stripboards giving
a reliable joint more easily.

element14.co.nz and ".au" seem to have it heavily discounted today.

--
umop apisdn


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Don Kuenz]

In sci.electronics.design Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 23:58:13 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

That was my approach until I read _Troubleshooting Analog Circuits_ by
Pease. For solderless breadbroads Pease recommends perfboard and
Digikey A208 and A209.

Are you sure you want to follow Bob Pease's example?
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/bob-pease-breadboard.htm

Pease the jester put that tangle on the cover of his book. It posses
a certain charismatic enthralling aspect that draws me into its blooming
crazy.

It reminds me of the open air boardless circuit that used to hang on an
old boss' wall as abusive art. Imagine, if you will, a perfboard circuit
minus the perfboard with lots of stiff wire "tracers" to keep everything
in place.

The stiff wire tracers were generally kept strictly horizontal and
vertical, which lent an air of respectability to the tangle. The art was
voice activated. It made obnoxious sounds - chirping and doing what not
when one spoke. It was the audio equivalent of rolling one's eyes. It
was unsettling and kept employees such as me on the defensive, to the
delight of my boss, no doubt.

But, it was also art. It was fun to look at.

--
Don Kuenz

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 9/15/2014 8:57 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 23:50:46 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

In sci.electronics.design John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:03:36 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

NO!


If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

Parts soldered to gold-plated FR4.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z338_PCB.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z356_EOM_Timer/Z356_Top.JP

That's so beautiful that it belongs in an art museum after you finish
your prototype! It seems that SMT makes solderless breadboard a thing of
the past.

This is my favorite, but I did it on non-gold-plated FR4, and it
quickly tarnished.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/LDP2.JPG

The copperclad breadboards allow really fast, high-current stuff. And
you can write on them, and keep them for future reference.

I find them (live bug!) easier to understand, too. The solderless
things confuse me, and dead bug makes me count backwards.

Like the flexible Werner von Braun, according to Tom Lehrer:

"You too can be a big hero / Just learn to count backwards to zero.
'Once the rockets go up / who cares where they come down?
That's not my department' / says Werner von Braun"

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 9/15/2014 8:20 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 23:58:13 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

That was my approach until I read _Troubleshooting Analog Circuits_ by
Pease. For solderless breadbroads Pease recommends perfboard and
Digikey A208 and A209.

Are you sure you want to follow Bob Pease's example?
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/bob-pease-breadboard.htm

Perf board is way too slow, I find--it takes at least twice as long as
dead-bug when both methods apply. All that cutting and stripping of
wires takes ages, and wire-wrap wire is too easy to nick.

Also the thickness of the board takes up vertical space that's very
useful for making connections. With dead bug, you just use clipped-off
component leads for hookup wire, and you can easily get three vertical
layers of connections without shorts.

One layer is pins bent directly down to the package (e.g. shorting pins
2 and 6 of an op amp follower), the next is where the leads neck down,
and the top one arches over that one. You can make the layout pretty
tight if you use the bodies of resistors and capacitors to force the
wires apart.

So I use perf board only rarely. When I do, it's Vector 8007
(pad-per-via plus ground plane).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 08:27:49 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 9/15/2014 8:57 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 23:50:46 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

In sci.electronics.design John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:03:36 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

NO!


If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

Parts soldered to gold-plated FR4.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z338_PCB.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z356_EOM_Timer/Z356_Top.JP

That's so beautiful that it belongs in an art museum after you finish
your prototype! It seems that SMT makes solderless breadboard a thing of
the past.

This is my favorite, but I did it on non-gold-plated FR4, and it
quickly tarnished.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/LDP2.JPG

The copperclad breadboards allow really fast, high-current stuff. And
you can write on them, and keep them for future reference.

I find them (live bug!) easier to understand, too. The solderless
things confuse me, and dead bug makes me count backwards.

Like the flexible Werner von Braun, according to Tom Lehrer:

"You too can be a big hero / Just learn to count backwards to zero.
'Once the rockets go up / who cares where they come down?
That's not my department' / says Werner von Braun"

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Werner is said to be the origin of

"One experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions."

which is the email sigfile of a Fellow of United Technologies.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

(Around here, a lot of the people that you interview have worked for
Dolby. Turnover seems pretty high. They are like ILM, expecting people
to work for glory.)


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[rickman]

On 9/16/2014 11:56 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

Don't know about 5, but 6 is very doable, see my other post...

--

Rick

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:46:30 +0000 (UTC), Don Kuenz
<garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:

Pease the jester put that tangle on the cover of his book. It posses
a certain charismatic enthralling aspect that draws me into its blooming
crazy.

When I was designing marine radios, we would build a breadboard on a
piece of plywood, using small PCB's representing sub-systems and
stages. Typically, one to four engineers and maybe 3 technicians
would contribute to the prototype construction. Artistic value and
neatness varied, but the final result usually worked quite well. For
many years, one such working plywood prototype was hanging on the wall
of the lab (the only safe place), permanently wired to a power supply
and antenna. It was very commonly used as a "reference" radio for
comparison with current production units. When something went wrong,
it was a big help. Anyone borrowing parts from the breadboard were
threatened with violence, so it remained functional for at least 5
years.

It reminds me of the open air boardless circuit that used to hang on an
old boss' wall as abusive art. Imagine, if you will, a perfboard circuit
minus the perfboard with lots of stiff wire "tracers" to keep everything
in place.

<http://www.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/e-hatband.html>
This will require some explanation. I was temporarily in hospital
with a sprained ankle, torn ligaments, and a possible concussion.
After the first day, I became seriously bored. A friend delivered my
box of junk parts, a soldering iron, some small tools, and ordered me
to build something. The best I could do was a hat band, the remains
of which is in the picture. Solder and wire leads do not tolerate
much flexing, which caused the hatband to break. It may not look like
much, but as I was seeing double at the time, soldering all that junk
together was a real challenge.

I've built quite a few multi-layer 3D type circuits. However, I
always have built them on a piece PCB to provide the necessary
support. I also have a fair collection of 22M resistors, which I use
for standoffs and mechanical support.

>But, it was also art. It was fun to look at.

The uglier the breadboard, the better it works.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Don Y]

On 9/16/2014 8:46 AM, Don Kuenz wrote:

It reminds me of the open air boardless circuit that used to hang on an
old boss' wall as abusive art. Imagine, if you will, a perfboard circuit
minus the perfboard with lots of stiff wire "tracers" to keep everything
in place.

The stiff wire tracers were generally kept strictly horizontal and
vertical, which lent an air of respectability to the tangle. The art was
voice activated. It made obnoxious sounds - chirping and doing what not
when one spoke. It was the audio equivalent of rolling one's eyes. It
was unsettling and kept employees such as me on the defensive, to the
delight of my boss, no doubt.

But, it was also art. It was fun to look at.

A friend *always* "air wired" (simple) things. I think he enjoyed
the three-dimensional puzzle aspect of it ("Hmmm... how can I get
this component to bridge these two points in space?").

When done, he would wrap the circuit in toilet paper (!) and
stuff it in a tin can.

<shrug> Different strokes...

 

[Cydrome Leader]

In sci.electronics.repair John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

I'd cut them slack (and give some credit too) considering how old that
thing is. It's actually pretty cool. I had some 70s/early 80s
"Sega/Gremlin" arcade machine boards that all appeared to have been layed
out by hand with vinyl decals. Every single trace. boards and boards of
74xx series logic circling a z80 or something like that, all done by hand.
These were production boards, but somebody spend lots of time designing
those boards. Not sure what sort of board layout tools they had back then,
although they must have existed. Anybody know?

(Around here, a lot of the people that you interview have worked for
Dolby. Turnover seems pretty high. They are like ILM, expecting people
to work for glory.)

Has Dolby done anything new or interesting in the past decade?

 

[Robert Baer]

Don Kuenz wrote:

Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

--
Don Kuenz
Haven't we been thru this garbage before recently?

 

[rickman]

On 9/17/2014 2:25 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

I'd cut them slack (and give some credit too) considering how old that
thing is. It's actually pretty cool. I had some 70s/early 80s
"Sega/Gremlin" arcade machine boards that all appeared to have been layed
out by hand with vinyl decals. Every single trace. boards and boards of
74xx series logic circling a z80 or something like that, all done by hand.
These were production boards, but somebody spend lots of time designing
those boards. Not sure what sort of board layout tools they had back then,
although they must have existed. Anybody know?

Yeah, PCB layout back then was supported by... I can't think of the name
of the company that made those pads and strips. They made them with
scale factors so you could more easily see what you were doing, 2x and
4x that I recall. You set your design rules by picking the tape width
and the pad diameter. If you were a little tight and wanted to shave a
little off a pad... you shaved a little off a pad. lol

I didn't do layout then, but I've seen the artwork. Xacto knives are
your friends even if it is just for picking up the tracks and pads and
placing them.

I don't think CAD systems were used much even for layout until around
the time the PC hit the scene. I guess the big companies had them...
with "huge" 20" CRTs and light pens most likely. Don't know for sure.

--

Rick

 

[Don Kuenz]

In sci.electronics.repair John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 11:17 PM, Robert Baer wrote:
Don Kuenz wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

--
Don Kuenz
Haven't we been thru this garbage before recently?

"One man's garbage is another man's treasure."

It's an electronics group. One can expect discussions about breadboards,
SPICE, and Pease to surface from time to time. Those things are on
topic.

Yeah. But, is anyone interested in the way I do it? It's slightly
different from the rest of the posts.

*I* am interested and that's why I posted the question in the first
place. Everyone else can (and will) speak for themselves.

--
Don Kuenz

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 06:25:08 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
<presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

I'd cut them slack (and give some credit too) considering how old that
thing is. It's actually pretty cool. I had some 70s/early 80s
"Sega/Gremlin" arcade machine boards that all appeared to have been layed
out by hand with vinyl decals. Every single trace. boards and boards of
74xx series logic circling a z80 or something like that, all done by hand.
These were production boards, but somebody spend lots of time designing
those boards. Not sure what sort of board layout tools they had back then,
although they must have existed. Anybody know?

I used to lay out my own boards, decals and black crepe tape on
pin-aligned mylar. There would be a padmaster (pads only) and a
separate sheet for each trace layer. We sent it out to Lorry Ray in
Mountain View to be photographed. They could also do cool ground plane
tricks, all with wet photography. We'd send the film out to the fab
house and expect to get it back.

I still have a few layouts around, to show the kids. It was labor
intensive.

(Around here, a lot of the people that you interview have worked for
Dolby. Turnover seems pretty high. They are like ILM, expecting people
to work for glory.)

Has Dolby done anything new or interesting in the past decade?

Big sound systems for movie theatres (a dying biz) and a new home 3D
sound system.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John S]

On 9/16/2014 12:43 PM, Don Y wrote:

On 9/16/2014 8:46 AM, Don Kuenz wrote:

It reminds me of the open air boardless circuit that used to hang on an
old boss' wall as abusive art. Imagine, if you will, a perfboard circuit
minus the perfboard with lots of stiff wire "tracers" to keep everything
in place.

The stiff wire tracers were generally kept strictly horizontal and
vertical, which lent an air of respectability to the tangle. The art was
voice activated. It made obnoxious sounds - chirping and doing what not
when one spoke. It was the audio equivalent of rolling one's eyes. It
was unsettling and kept employees such as me on the defensive, to the
delight of my boss, no doubt.

But, it was also art. It was fun to look at.

A friend *always* "air wired" (simple) things. I think he enjoyed
the three-dimensional puzzle aspect of it ("Hmmm... how can I get
this component to bridge these two points in space?").

When done, he would wrap the circuit in toilet paper (!) and
stuff it in a tin can.

shrug> Different strokes...

I've wrapped several of my projects in toilet paper and stuffed them.

 

[John S]

On 9/16/2014 11:17 PM, Robert Baer wrote:

Don Kuenz wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

--
Don Kuenz
Haven't we been thru this garbage before recently?

Yeah. But, is anyone interested in the way I do it? It's slightly
different from the rest of the posts.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:17:38 -0700, Robert Baer
<robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote:

Don Kuenz wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

--
Don Kuenz
Haven't we been thru this garbage before recently?

Every society needs its rituals.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 09/17/2014 12:02 PM, John S wrote:

On 9/16/2014 11:17 PM, Robert Baer wrote:
Don Kuenz wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

TIA.

--
Don Kuenz
Haven't we been thru this garbage before recently?


Yeah. But, is anyone interested in the way I do it? It's slightly
different from the rest of the posts.

I don't know. Are you good at it? All wisdom welcome!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 03:00:04 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/17/2014 2:25 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

I'd cut them slack (and give some credit too) considering how old that
thing is. It's actually pretty cool. I had some 70s/early 80s
"Sega/Gremlin" arcade machine boards that all appeared to have been layed
out by hand with vinyl decals. Every single trace. boards and boards of
74xx series logic circling a z80 or something like that, all done by hand.
These were production boards, but somebody spend lots of time designing
those boards. Not sure what sort of board layout tools they had back then,
although they must have existed. Anybody know?

Yeah, PCB layout back then was supported by... I can't think of the name
of the company that made those pads and strips.

Brady?

They made them with
scale factors so you could more easily see what you were doing, 2x and
4x that I recall. You set your design rules by picking the tape width
and the pad diameter. If you were a little tight and wanted to shave a
little off a pad... you shaved a little off a pad. lol

We used 1:1 on a lathe sort of cutter. The white/black copy was
mounted to one drum and copper-clad mounted to a second drum. A
light/photocell and audio amplifier then drove a solenoid with a knife
blade to make the copy on the copper-clad sheet as the lathe turned.

I didn't do layout then, but I've seen the artwork. Xacto knives are
your friends even if it is just for picking up the tracks and pads and
placing them.

Yep. I did a lot of it in college.

I don't think CAD systems were used much even for layout until around
the time the PC hit the scene. I guess the big companies had them...
with "huge" 20" CRTs and light pens most likely. Don't know for sure.

I last used the tape method when I graduated. Everything at the PPoE
was done with CAD after that (long before the PC). The early CAD was
pretty crude, though. The graphical tools were quite limited until,
perhaps, '76 or so. Everything was done with text netlists before
that but there was no tape and hadn't been for some time.

 

[rickman]

On 9/17/2014 10:46 PM, josephkk wrote:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2014 06:25:08 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Sep 2014 03:02:11 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/16/2014 1:58 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Don Kuenz <garbage@crcomp.net> wrote:
Do you personally use a plastic solderless breadboard for your
prototypes?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=solderless+breadboard

If not, what do you use for your prototypes?

This:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Dolby_SR_breadboard.jpg

It's a Dolby SR prototype of some sort.

Yeah, like I said, I always do PCB from the start. This one just has a
few more white wires than usual. Good thing he had all those
conveniently located vias. lol

Yeah, a real PCB could have been done faster than making that by hand.
And you could order 5 of them. If this was Dolby, the cost of a
quick-turn multilayer board would be trivial.

I'd cut them slack (and give some credit too) considering how old that
thing is. It's actually pretty cool. I had some 70s/early 80s
"Sega/Gremlin" arcade machine boards that all appeared to have been layed
out by hand with vinyl decals. Every single trace. boards and boards of
74xx series logic circling a z80 or something like that, all done by hand.
These were production boards, but somebody spend lots of time designing
those boards. Not sure what sort of board layout tools they had back then,
although they must have existed. Anybody know?

In the late 1960s i remember ICS, Daisy and Mentor systems that would do
board layout. Rather expensive though, about %50K for the base
workstation (often 2901 based) as much more for the software, another
chunk $70k for the photo plotter (Gerber compatible).

Are you sure about your timeframe? Was the 2901 even around in the late
60's?

Wikipedia - "Am2900 is a family of integrated circuits (ICs) created in
1975 by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)."

I think CAD for anyone but the really large companies didn't happen
until nearly 1980 give or take a couple of years. We had a couple of
68000 based workstations in 1985 and I remember they made a 2901
software compatible version which ran twice as fast, which still wasn't
much. I started some sort of run and I recall it had to run overnight.
Then some idiot came in and pressed a key which kills your process.
What a stupid key to have on a keyboard.

--

Rick