6 Oct
2001
6 Oct
'01
2:19 a.m.
Back in the '80-'81 when I was making and selling prototyping boards, including
some for the VME, BICC-VERO was a competitor while Vector, the US' main maker of
hobbyist class protype boards really made no effort to compete at all. While
Vector products were then, and are today, of the lowest conceivable quality and
poorest design imaginable, their prices were right up with VERO and with me.
Where VME was concerned, even the FAE's from MOT, Mostek, and Signetics, all of
whom had their own boards to sell, were pushing my boards because of their
combined low price and desirable features such as uniforom colander ground and
power planes, full 0.100" matrix hole grid, and dry-film solder mask on both
sides to facilitate point-to-point wiring for sensitive analog circuits. The
VERO boards also offered a colander ground plane, but my boards were more
available locally.
AFAIK, BICC-VERO was not widely available but did have a presence in the market
in the U.S. They were the only serious competitor I had, however. I don't
believe they impacted my own sales much, however.
I got into the wirewrap board business only because I couldn't use what others
were offering, mainly because there were no useable provisions for the
then-newly-popularized IDC connectors for cabling and for attachment to
mezzanine boards, etc. Moreover, most of them required VERY COSTLY adapters
for PGA and PLCC packaging, while my own design allowed both IDC connectors and
PGA sockets to be placed nearly anywhere on the board.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: Is there a source for veroboard in the U.S.?
I wanted to bang out a quick thing involving bussed lines (an LED display
for a Dragon's Lair game, if you're curious). I thought it might be
quick to do with veroboard as opposed to point-to-point wiring. I want
to make a prototype before considering burning a board (since that's a
weakness I have at the moment anyway - lack of knowledge about layout
tools). The problem is that I haven't seen veroboard for sale in the
States, only the U.K. and perhaps Western Europe. Here, we have
Veroboard is (used to be?) a trade name used by BICC-Vero. The generic
name for what you are looking for is 'Stripboard'
It must be available in the States. I thought the common brand for
prototyping boards over there was 'Vector'. Surely they must do something
similar.
lots of modular prototyping board, but it's
not easy to use when you
have a lot of parallel connections (like a data bus).
Are there any sources on this side of the pond? If not, how much does
a sheet of about 6"x9" cost? If it's too expensive to buy and ship, I
Getting it that wide is going to be hard (at least over here). The
largest common sizes are designed to stand upright in a 3U card frame, so
about 4". I think 4" by 6" (approx) is a fairly common size.
I went to school in England in 1985 - New
College, specifically, down the
street from Blackwell's Books. I spent many hours there absorbing
Ah,, the_other_place (sorry, couldn't resist...) :-)
-tony