In defense of wire-wrap; was: Cosmac Elf on breadboard - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

7 Mar 2012

On 6 Mar 2012 at 20:15, David Riley wrote:

...
  I should also point out that all of the original
Macintosh
 prototypes were wire-wrapped, which should probably indicate that it's
 a pretty sound methodology for assembling microcomputers. It worked
 well enough in '83, anyway. 
In the latter half of the '70s, I ran a Modcomp II that was mounted in a trailer. The
computer, with the exception of the power supplies, was entirely wire-wrapped. During the
10k miles that we put on the beast, the only failures were the capacitors in the power
supplies coming unscrewed and a bad lot of 74S172s. That computer was the easiest machine
I have ever worked on to maintain.

	-> CRC