On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com> wrote: > On 05/24/2016 12:15 PM, Eric Smith wrote: >> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Chuck Guzis <ccl...@sydex.com> >> wrote: >>> Yes, but there was a trademarked name for the process that slips >>> my mind. Capable of very high densities. >> >> Multiwire? > > That sounds familiar!
The last COMBOARD product, for VAX BI used a similar technology from Augat called "Unilayer" - it was a bunch of wires autorouted from the netlist and stuck together and applied as a "mat" on each side of a perfboard with plated-through holes and tacked down at each via/wire junction, then small machine pin inserts were stuffed into the vias that became the sockets. We did it because of the 10-layer requirements of VAX BI and the costs of spinning up such a thick board in the early 1990s. Augat had a VAX BI "blank" and we sent them our layout and netlist and got back a stack of boards. They were expensive, but for the size of run we did, it was cheaper than the setup costs for our own PCB, and guaranteed to be compliant in the "BI Corner" which was essential for success. We sold a few. I still have the remainder of the run. Unless one needs a 68010 with some local RAM and a Z8650 SIO as a VAX peripheral, they are mostly a curiosity. I ported our HASP and 3780 products to it, but we never had any customer demand for SNA for VAX BI, so that never happened. So if not Multiwire, perhaps Unilayer. They are similar but visibly distinguishable. -ethan