On 2012 Mar 7, at 2:51 PM, Mike Loewen wrote:
On Wed, 7 Mar 2012, Dennis Boone wrote:
Another production unit that shipped with lots of
wire-wrap on
board was
the IBM 3803 tape controller. E.g. from Pat's collection:
http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/ibm/3420/3803-back-open-
small.jpg
The central computer (Hughes H5118ME) of the AN/FYQ-93 air
defense system had a slightly larger backplane, all wire-wrapped.
It didn't generally cause problems, unless someone was fooling
around in the back. It took us 5 days to track down a connection
problem on the backplane once, eventually doing point-to-point
continuity checks.
There was another backplane wiring technique in the mid-60s using
crimps. Could be mistaken for wire-wrap from a distance, but the wire
is crimped to the pin with a folded metal crimp, not wrapped.
The early HP 21xx machines used it, some photos of a 2116C backplane:
http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/2116Cbp/crimps.jpg
http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/2116Cbp/backplane.jpg
I've never heard a distinct name for it.
What's the earliest instance of wire-wrap anyone knows of?