Keith wrote:
What's a roadrunner pen?
Also known as a wiring pencil. Think of a mechanical pencil with the
eraser replaced by a holder for a sewing machine spool. That spool holds
a supply of ~30SWG enamelled copper wire.
The company that makes them is, unsurprisingly, also called RoadRunner:
http://www.rrunner.co.uk/
There are some photos of the pens here:
http://www.rrunner.co.uk/pens/pens.htm
They've been around for years, though as I understand it they're more
popular in the UK than they are anywhere else. Price is about ?15 for
the pen and a spool of wire, then ?7 for a pack of four spools of wire.
They do the wire in 38SWG and 36SWG diameter enamelled (in a choice of
four colours), and also in a 33SWG tinned copper (uninsulated) version.
I built my 6502 computer with one, and they work fairly well for
low-pin-count socketed PLCC parts as well. Wouldn't want to try a PGA,
though.
And this is my current frustration! Verilog. FPGAs.
Etc.
Verilog isn't that hard to learn, it's all the other stuff that goes
along with it (metastability, clock synchronisation, clock domains,
finite-state machine implementation, ...)
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/