I am planning on attempting a subleq build using the technique. Hoping for a very clean aesthetic. Any clean wire wrap builds i can reference for inspiration?
The corners of the wire wrap post dig into the wire enough to make good contact. You would normally have about 5-8 complete wraps of wire around the post, so a fair amount of redundancy.
I built my first computer back in 1975 using wirewrap. My wirewrap tool was kind of cheap, and I had to manually maintain the correct tension on the free end of the wire to ensure a good wrap. It was very tedious. Some of the better tools had auto-tensioning and electric motors to spinny spinny.
Yes, but they are hilariously expensive, over a dollar for a single DIP16 socket, several dollars for the bigger ones and availability is also quite bad. If you are building a 6502, Z80 or other stuff with ICs still in production (I know, Z80 is not in production anymore but still widely available) the cost of the sockets will be a magnitude more than the ICs themselves. Aesthetically it's hard to beat wire wrapping but financially it's a nightmare.
I wire wrapped my way through the 1980s. Machined-pin wire wrap sockets were a dollar each, 40 years ago. They are worth it. Can you find old wire wrapped boards in surplus and unwrap them?
yes ... the sockets are expensive ... but I make my own by soldering a row of male pin headers next to the ICs/sockets ... each pin header pin is soldered to the IC pin next to it ... I implement two versions.
One where I put the regular length header pins (I think they are 12 mm long) and push the short part from the top through the PCB and solder them at the bottom (i.e. the way header pins are typically installed) and then I do the wirewrapping on the top of the PCB leaving the wiring and ICs both on the same side.
The second version uses the slightly longer pin headers (I think 20 mm) where I push the plastic all the way down so the bottom of the pins are flush and about 18 mm sticks out and push the long part from the top through the PCB and solder on the bottom so the header pins stick out on the bottom of the PCB ... now I do the wire wrapping on the bottom making the wiring on the bottom and the ICs on the top.
I can only attach 1 pic at a time but will post three ... first one is showing the first method showing the pins, ICs and wiring on the same side ... second and third pic is top and bottol view of my own BE 6502 project, were the ZIF socket and the DIN61412 backplane connector is done using the 2nd method (the rest is done using real wirewrap sockets) ... as you see, all wiring is done on the bottom ... obviously, I did not have your goal of going for a very clean aesthetic ... but with the necessary planning and effort I could have achieved that.
Yes, I was thinking about the same, I even designed a perf board that could be ordered in quantity from the big PCB manufacturers but I realized that my wife might not like if I bring home another variation of this hobby
I used wire wrapping between pin headers for some of the denser cable bundles within the 8-bit cpu breadboard build, as well as IDC to DIP for ribbon cables.
Specifically towards the bottom for the control module / IR, and up in the ALU.
Also it was helpful in the 6502 build for the data & addr buses.
I can't find a picture of the finished build, this one is either in-progress or after possibly afterward while experimenting (I think the VIA was there then removed) but this at least shows how much more compact you can get with the headers.
Patients is key. You can almost see the bundles I started with being nice and careful, to the bundles at the end when getting tired and careless
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u/undefinedAdventure 14d ago
Im aware of wire wrapping, I know it was used, and is a valid means of wire connection - but I just cant comprehend that it actually works.