"It is amazing how we were able to build radios with only 2 sided PCBs
for 50 ohm micro or strip lines."
In the later 70's we took delivery of a Data General Nova 3
mini-computer that came with a FORTRAN compiler. The circuit boards
were 15" square-ish, 2-layer. We quickly discovered that periodically
but unpredictably, execution of the compiler would quit dead on a DO
statement in the source. It just stopped. No other statement, only a
DO and not all the time, but if it stopped, it did so on every recompile
of that source. <mailto:[email protected]>
After several DG visits they finally believed us and showed up with
their Guru in flip-flops, ragged board shorts, a torn T-shirt, and
fairly long-ish uncombed hair. He said almost nothing and the other 3
DG's [in "computer expert" business attire] were very attentive to him.
<mailto:[email protected]>
He spent most of the morning with the 'scope making notes in a beat-up
notebook in indecipherable script and diagrams. Finally muttered
something to his minions who raced to get him an Xacto knife, some very
light insulated wire, and the soldering station. He cut both ends of
several parallel traces and replaced them with twisted pair jumpers. The
compiler never stalled on a DO statement again.
Problem likely would never have occurred had the board had a 3rd ground
layer between the two outer ones but they they had yet to be invented.
73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
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