Holy cow cool... One of the significant challenges developing new devices to put into the old devices is simply the physical pins.
Standard common pins, whether square or round, are usually too big to work (without damage) in most chip sockets, and in several instances there is not enough vertical space available to remove a normal dip andnput in a pcb with pin headers with shoulders. We resort to measures like: http://tandy.wiki/Model_200_RAM I don't know how long these things have been around but, but just now is the first time I ever saw them... https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14086 Dang that's a problem solver. For one thing I'm imagining a tweaked version of REX where these are soldered to the top surface pointing straight out parallel with the pcb, and after you remove the jigs you bend the pins down 90 degrees and put the pcb right in to a real molex carrier (or a 3d printed copy, the files for 2 versions are available, and at least one service, Shapeways, can produce prints that work, so it's not limited to my supply of original ones). REX in a proper carrier. Polarity-keyed. No extraction ribbon. No spacer. No risk of mangled socket pins from getting the spacer wrong. No flapping copper flags possibly shorting between pins from the router cutting the castellated half-holes. Same goes for the simpler Figtronix eprom adapter boards. These would also be useful for a main rom adapter that can still have room for both a socket on the adapter and still keep the original socket on the motherboard. And of course the example I mentioned above with the Model 200 ram where there is just no extra vertical space available between the socket and the enclosure door. Biggest problem is... how long will these actually be available? Those edge clip-on dip legs were pretty cool too, but all I can do is look at pictures of obsolete items you can't actually buy any more. Ok I guess you can get them, or something similar again... http://www.solutions-cubed.com/products-page/connector/dip10/ Not sure, maybe you could get that to work for a REX too. The option to solder parallel to the top surface and then bend down really makes a difference though when vertical room is tight. -- bkq
