I've got 3 different size wire wrapping tools.
My ICT1301 uses monster wire wrap posts, most of which are made in two halves. One half is
part of a printed (or some are hand wired) circuit board and the other half is part of the
rack it fits in. Bare 25 AWG tinned copper wire is wrapped around the two halves, up to 25
for each board to connect the board to the rack. No tails going off anywhere else. To swap
a board all the wire wraps need to be undone before the board can be slid out. It does
mean every logic pin is easily accessible for fault finding, and each one has a little
hook for the scope probe to hang from. The solid one are used for connecting the cabinets
together, same size tool but using sleeving on the wire. Up to 1500 connections between
racks. There are ten electronic cabinets, not counting the two power supply and twelve
peripherals cabinets. The tool fits in the smallest size of Stanley 'yankee'
spiral ratchet screwdriver. Clockwise to wrap, anti-clockwise to unwrap.
I also have a similar slightly smaller one for back plane wiring of later ICL mainframes.
Uses smaller pins and smaller wire otherwise identical.
The third one is the more modern standard wire wrap for integrated circuits. I'm
currently using it to build a serial/parallel interface to my 1301 using 74 series TTL and
a few C/N MOS chips. At work I used to have a tool for this from RS components which had a
wrapper on one end and unwrapper the other end and a stripper in the middle. This has
probably been chucked away and a replacement is incredibly expensive so I'm making do
with wire stripping pliers and a much simpler wrapping tool I bought over the internet
from the states along with a half dozen colours of insulated wire.
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