DEC Board Designs = Art

[cchhrriiss11]

Am I the only one that absolutely loves the look of DEC board designs? (Below is just some random examples.)

I'm a huge fan of DEC, the amount of engineering that has gone into each product (from the very low-end to the high-end) is amazing, everything is "high quality".
I love how serviceability appears to have always been taken into account with all of the designs.





-Chris

 

[mcguire]

You're not the only one. Their designs were, for the most part, excellent from top to bottom. That's one of the reasons behind their enduring popularity and evangelism amongst folks like us.

-Dave

 

[NeXT]

The grids of squares really help to identify them in piles of boards. I don't think I've seen anyone etch boards like that.

 

[saipan59]

More specifically related to "art", for many years most boards designed in CXO (Colo. Springs) included the artwork seen in the example below. It was designed by PCB layout engineer Eric Somers, who was still in CXO until a few months ago - Eric is an all-around great guy. I've heard that the HPE descendant group of DEC Storage stopped doing in-house PCB design last year. The storage products are mostly software and marketing now...

Other trivia, regarding the little squares seen on many modules: I forget the proper term, but the purpose is to NOT leave large areas with no copper, because it can distort the etch traces nearby during the etching process.

BTW, if anyone has access to data that describes what this "CXO614" module is, I'd be interested in knowing. The other side has pads for an SOIC-8 chip plus several discretes. I have a handful of these little guys. It is probably an internal-only lab tool sort of thing.

Pete

 

[Alegend]

Other trivia, regarding the little squares seen on many modules: I forget the proper term, but the purpose is to NOT leave large areas with no copper, because it can distort the etch traces nearby during the etching process.

It's called, of course, copper balance.

-Alon.

 

[Teletech]

Speaking of dec boards and artistic design, I wonder who came up with this system used by dec on a lot of the VAX-11 boards.
A legless 40-pin carrier, placed lid-down in a socket, covered with a heat-sink, and closed with a latching wire spring. A remarkable set of elements for ~1980.
The spring on one side for registration is another interesting detail and is the hole for handling, extraction, or what? In any case, very interesting.
Not shown is the fact the heat sink has a raised pad in the center that has a pad of some heat transfer material. I can't help buy wonder if adding a slight touch of good heatsink paste or replacing the rubbery pad with paste wouldn't perhaps improve thermal performance. These chip have been around a while and I'd like to give them as easy a time as possible. In any case, nicely executed.