Denial

Prototyping boards that fit the VIC expansion port used to be everywhere. Now, finding them is somewhat difficult and they are usually quite expensive when you do. Not to mention they are usually of less than great quality. So I had some made. I've written it up and made the gerber files available if anyone else wants to get some:
http://wrcooke.net/classiccomputer/vicp ... proto.html

Nice, I did buy some similar boards that someone else made up a few years ago but they were more expensive than this (and I ended up having to pay duty on them ) If anyone in Europe/UK makes any of these I could probably be tempted to purchase some...

Another board that doesn't seem available is one for the user port. I had to glue a connector to a bit of board and hand wire it for my vicVOICE prototype.

Those do look nice.

Where are you located in TN?

Thanks.
I'm very close to Clarksville / Fort Campbell area, NW of Nashville. I work in Nashville.

Ah, cool. I'm in Chattanooga myself.

Nice!
My wife and I both grew up in the Chattanooga / north Georgia area. Our families are still there. I escaped when I was 18 and went back and rescued her later. I know Chattanooga quite well... or used to.
In fact, my VIC 20 was bought at the K-Mart in East Ridge (gone now, i think), '82 or '83

bdk6 wrote:Nice!
My wife and I both grew up in the Chattanooga / north Georgia area. Our families are still there. I escaped when I was 18 and went back and rescued her later. I know Chattanooga quite well... or used to.
In fact, my VIC 20 was bought at the K-Mart in East Ridge (gone now, i think), '82 or '83

That's awesome! Yeah, that K-Mart turned into a Sears/K-Mart store when Sears bought them out. Now, it's a giant, ugly fireworks store in a dangerous area (lots of thugs live around there now).

We actually live in the Hixson area close to Soddy.

If you're ever in Chattanooga drop me a line. Maybe we can grab a beer and talk about old computers.

That would be cool. If I'm ever going to be there long enough to breath I will do just that. Thanks!

Nice, just saying be careful about HASL connectors, I know it's been talked about in many places on this forum, but here is a picture of a cartridge after about 30 or so inserts in a VIC-20.

Thanks, Floopy!
I'm well aware of the hazards. The boards I had made were mostly a test run, so I didn't want to pay the extra. My uses for these won't involve a lot of use. JLCPCB offers ENIG at a fairly low price, which I mentioned in the original post I recommend anyone having these made for long term use spring for the extra $17 to have it added.

I just got some cartridges manufactured by JLC with ENIG platting, it's not for the VIC-20 though. It's for a tektronix analyzer. I'm curious how it's going to turn out. they shipped it out about 4 days ago and I took the cheaper option, so it might take a while. I didn't think that HASL was that bad until I started comparing my HASL boards and 35 year old edge connectors.

I finally got the boards, The 45 degree edge is a bit of a let down, but it works. The right one is the replica.

The board looks quite nice.
I'm not sure what you mean about the 45 degree edge. Do you mean you wanted a 45 deg corner on your board as the left one seems to have? I suspect that whatever you submitted to them is what you got. They seem to cut the boards exactly as the shape layer dictates.

EDIT: If you go back and look at the pics of my board you will see it has 45 deg corners on the edge connector. They are exactly as I drew them in the layout.

bdk6 wrote:The board looks quite nice.
I'm not sure what you mean about the 45 degree edge. Do you mean you wanted a 45 deg corner on your board as the left one seems to have? I suspect that whatever you submitted to them is what you got. They seem to cut the boards exactly as the shape layer dictates.

EDIT: If you go back and look at the pics of my board you will see it has 45 deg corners on the edge connector. They are exactly as I drew them in the layout.

I should have specified a little more, I was hurrying. You can see that on modern edge connectors the PCB is "chamfered". That way it is easier to insert and it reduces wear. You can barely see it in the picture that the edges all around are square, but just in front of the fingers it's been milled at an angle. The chamfer is not very big though.

Ah, I understand now.
I have no idea if they offer that service, but I'm sure it would have to be specified and almost certainly cost extra. But three or four light passes with a file should do the trick if you want it.