GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board
Jon Elson
elson at pico-systems.com
Fri Aug 16 21:21:44 CDT 2019
On 08/16/2019 05:59 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> > From: Brent Hilpert
>
> > I've seen pieces of HP high-end lab equipment from thru the 60s that
> > used tin plating on the PCB edge fingers, mating into gold-plated edge
> > connectors on the backplane.
>
> ISTR that DEC used bronze contacts in their backplanes, but basically all the
> boards had gold-plated fingers. (I think I've seen a few power supply boards
> that had tinned fingers.)
>
> I think the bronze was preferred since the contacts bend back and forth as
> cards are inserted/removed, and bronze is more durable; and being part tin,
> has the same corrosion characteristics are the tin.
>
> Noel
>
The contacts were mostly phosphor bronze, but they had a
little spot of selectively plated gold where the PC board
finger actually wiped. I think they used basically the same
technology from the PDP-8 era to the VAX 7xx series.
Jon
Jon
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