7 Sep
2018
7 Sep
'18
5:46 a.m.
From: Paul Koning
inside are a whole pile of boards, all single-sided
etch with many
hundreds of jumpers to compensate for not being two-sided. Not cheap,
presumably
If memory serves, didn't the VT52 also have single-sided boards with a whole
bunch of jumper wires? Something relatively common, anyway, if not the VT52 -
I clearly remember the masses of jumpers on something, and Tech Sq had scads
of VT52's (to the point where VT100's were not that common when they did show
up, we were already full up).
Presumably, with automated placing machines, the jumpers were cheaper than a
large double-sided board (the VT52's boards were huge)? I'm assuming _someone_
did the math (including the amortization of the placing machine, which would
take longer to complete such a board).
From: Al Kossow
The biggest hardware innovation was smooth vertical
scrolling
...
I've never liked the feature
IIRC, we generally turned it off because it couldn't keep up at 9600 baud.
Noel