Front panel switches - what did they do?

[Charles Anthony]

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 9:56 AM, Swift Griggs <swiftgriggs at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 24 May 2016, Jon Elson wrote:
> > The early PDP-11s had a diode matrix ROM for the boot memory.  You could
> > change the boot code with a wire cutter and soldering iron.
>
> Is that similar to "wire wrap" ? I remember my grandmother talking about
> having to snip wires connected to diodes. I think this was in the 50's but
> it might have been the 60's, too. She mentioned something like that.
>
>
Wirewrap is solderless.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Wire_Wrapping.jpg/220px-Wire_Wrapping.jpg

Very good for prototyping, automated wirewrapping was for some production.


-- Charles