[rescue] DG Nova "pico end" backplane device

[Nick B]

I think I'm tripping the spam filter.  Samtec makes some "pass through" .1
headers (well, 2.54mm) that might work, the BCS and HLE lines look possible.
Nick

On Sun, Apr 22, 2018 at 10:37 PM, Skeezics Boondoggle <skeezicsb at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hey, guys --
>
> This might be a little obscure, even for this list. :-)
>
> Way back in the day I worked on DG Nova clones, running the BITS operating
> system.  There was a thriving little niche in the '80s for IDP, Bytronix,
> Point4, Star Technologies, and others, nearly all of whom are utterly
> forgotten these days... BITS was a business BASIC environment similar to
> IRIS from Point4.  It was licensed using a hardware device they called a
> "pico end" that slipped over the wire-wrap pins protruding from the
> backplane.  It was little more than a lump of epoxy concealing a PROM that
> provided a hardware license key.  One company made a small cache memory
> board that was attached in the same way, so that it didn't occupy an entire
> slot in the card cage.  Naturally I have had absolutely zero luck finding
> any references to this online.
>
> I'm fishing for suggestions for creating a similar mounting for an extender
> board for doing hardware debugging.  The idea is to create a long thin PCB
> with two rows of sockets that slip over the wire-wrap pins on the
> backplane, and two female card-edge connectors on the other side to mount
> the card under test.  To build a traditional extender board is
> prohibitively expensive (12" x 15") and the margin for clock skew is only
> 1.5ns anyway... hanging the board off the backplane directly (with
> appropriate mechanical support) would keep trace lengths as short as
> possible and massively reduce the cost of producing the thing.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions for sockets to fit over .510" wire wrap pins?
> It's two columns of 100 pins each, with .1" row spacing.  It doesn't look
> like any of the typical IC sockets or female pin headers have enough depth
> even when fully seated for a secure mount.  Just curious if any of you have
> or have heard of a similar strategy for something like this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Chris
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