BC11A paddle boards

[Ethan Dicks]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com> wrote:
> I just received the first of the BC11A paddle boards (so that I can now create my own BC11A cables).

Cool!

> For those who’d like to know, I probably will not be making a production run of these boards unless I get a *lot* of interest (100 boards or so).  If you want some, let me know and if I get enough interest, I’ll do a production run.

Considering DEC did something like this for the DWBUA, but with 4
30-pin cables (by necessity because of the BI backplane), is 2x60 pins
more cost-effective than 4x30?  Mostly, I'm curious about how much
60-pin ends cost and the difference in cost between 2 lengths of
60-pin ribbon cable vs 4 lengths of 30-pin cable.  The copper cost is
the same, but I wasn't sure what the current cost-per-foot is for
ribbon cable.  I haven't bought a reel of it in 30 years, but I do
recall that 40 pin seemed to be more expensive than 4 times the length
of 10-pin, for example (since we used both where I worked in the 80s).

Either way, these days, the cost of 2x60 vs 4x30 is probably minor
compared to the fab costs of a "large" PCB with gold fingers.  I'd be
curious to know how much a 10' BC11A-work-a-like will run, but I'm
vaguely interested in some pairs of boards.  I do have plenty of
Unibus machines and RK05s, most with vintage cables, but I'm sure
several of them have crimps and dings and might fail close inspection.

-ethan