[sdiy] Messy workshop and Into the future (was Old Age and Synth-DIYers)

[Colin Hinz]

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Scott Gravenhorst wrote:

> The photo you reference here reminds me of one I saw in popular
> electronics around the time of the first 8 bit "hobby computers".
> This fellow had built up a machine without a chassis, it was laid
> out on the bench with numerous rather long wires connecting the
> stripboard and home etched board pieces.  Then when his cat was
> investigating it all, something startled the animal who scrambled
> off the table leaving what I can describe only as a waterfall of
> electronics hanging off of the table. The most amazing part of this
> is that he claimed that it still worked and refused to attempt
> to get it back on the table for fear doing so would break it.

Here ya go....and yeah, it's a real classic. Before my time by
a few years, but I *do* vaguely remember the days when home
computers were so slow the wire lengths were unimportant.

http://home.eol.ca/~asfi/BYTE-1977-04-FC.jpg

Apparently, it also appeared in the August 1976 issue, which I
do not have.

I'm not sure what's worse -- wiring nightmares like this one, or
the scenario where an extra inch of trace length spells
unfixable failure.......

- Colin Hinz
  Toronto, Canada