23 Sep
1998
23 Sep
'98
4:25 p.m.
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
That's apart from the fact that serious DEC
hackers have automatic
continuity testers, at least for 36 pin flip-chip cards. 2 cards you plug
into the backplane and it'll tell you what's linked to what. Very useful
for tracking down backplane faults.
I can see that being simple and common for bussed signals, which are
prevalent on the Unibus, Omnibus, and Qbus. But the KL10 backplane has
no bussed logic signals. The backplane has some etched traces, but is
mostly machine-wrapped, and critical timing signals are wired with coax.
If a random wire in the backplane managed to get nicked on the corner of
a wire-wrap pin, I still assert that it will take a *long* time to find it.
Cheers,
Eric