4 ms·
I'm old-young enough to be aware of the evolution of minicomputers implemented in MSI TTL with wire-wrap (1970) to VLSI integration (1975). Examples are the
by FarmerPotato 1y ago
I'm old-young enough to be aware of the evolution of minicomputers implemented in MSI TTL with wire-wrap (1970) to VLSI integration (1975). Examples are the LSI-11 and TMS9900.
My first home-brew micro was done in 1987 using the Radio Shack hand-tool and an OK Industries' motorized wrap gun.
Now, I add CPLD to my wire-wrap designs! Just like on an iterated PCB, you must lock the physical pins to functions.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoSome DEC CPUs were wire-wrapped until VLSI became a thing. The KL-10 was notoriously an ECL wire-wrap design. But they had a semi-automated machine to handle it. I don't think anyone mass-produced non-trivial numbers of wire-wrap boards by hand. It's fine for prototypes, but it's a very error-prone process and makes it difficult to handle noise, especially at fast clock speeds.