MPX-16 census

[Scott Stevens]

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 12:05:01 -0600
woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:

> Scott Stevens wrote:
> 
> >Hopefully there will be an archive of system software up and
> >available for you to download by the time you get that board
> >populated.
> >
> >I'm working towards that, anyhow.
> >  
> >
> I was just looking at some smaller PCB's pricing,  and I hope you got
> a good deal
> on the PCB since on the same page they listed the prices for
> proto-type multi-layer PCB's.
> They an't cheap -- 8 layer board QTY 2 $500 each -- they don't do 7 
> layer boards.
> 

Price is probably down to $50 when you buy 1000, but this isn't a board
that we could find 1000 customers for at $50 apiece.

It could be a realistic candidate for a two layer board that does the
worst/most repetetive of the busses and power with the holes sized for
wire-wrap sockets.  But that's a huge engineering project just to
recreate something, and there'd still be huge amounts of wire wrapping
to perform.

I once in my naive youth bought a 'bare kit' unpopulated PC-XT clone
motherboard (this was from a Canadian company, btw.)  It was only a two
layer design, and I never did get it populated.  It probably wouldn't
have been stable, with the deficient power and grounding inherent in a
high chip count two layer layout.  

(okay, somebodys turn to say it can all be done in an ASIC)