Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever

From: CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com <(CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com)>
Date: Wed Jul 5 18:53:25 2000

>Since soldering is so much more reliable, and just as fast once you get
>used to using the soldering iron, I don't see the point of said
>breadboards. But anyway...

I've been using these breadboards for about 20 years now and I still
like them for a lot of things. They certainly aren't good for all
possibilities, but I regularly do digital logic into the 50 MHz
range with them and have few problems.

Modern CMOS logic families seem to be a lot more forgiving for poor bypassing
and high-impedance power sources than good old-fashioned "straight" TTL.
In fact, just for fun, I've pulled out *all* the bypass capacitors around
a 40 MHz HC TTL circuit and found that it operated identically to before
the bypass capacitors were pulled. Compare this to old-fashioned
straight 7400-series logic where if I don't put bypass capacitors everywhere
all the flip flops randomly choose a new state every time the clock
ticks!

On the subject of breadboarding with solder and wires: are there PC-boards
designed specifically for "place-and-tack" surface-mount prototyping?
I'm envisioning a power grid, a bunch of SOIC pads with small fanout,
a place for some surface-mount discrete parts, and maybe some way of putting
a header connector on the board. That'd be really useful. Sort of like
those through-hole prototyping PC boards that used to be popular.

Tim.
Received on Wed Jul 05 2000 - 18:53:25 BST

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