I designed many PCBs in pretty much this way in the 1970's. I used plastic stencils of various component pad footprints to help draw the pencil layout on the graph paper. For the final 4X plastic photo mask, besides stick-on doughnuts for the pads and black sticky crepe paper split tape for the tracks (crepe tape can be easily bent into curves as you lay it down), I also used "Bishop's graphics" which were stickers containing the pad footprints of various IC patterns. One difference from this vid was that the initial transparent film placed over the graph paper and pencil layout was a product called "rubylith" which had a thin red gel coating that could be peeled off the transparent backing. The first task after the rubylith was laid over the pencil layout was to cut through the red gel layer around all the areas of the tracks and pads using light pressure on a scalpel, and peel off the red film to unmask those areas - the red areas left would be the ground and/or power planes. The manufactured PCBs were two-sided and tinned but had no plated holes - we tried to feed tracks from top to bottom at the leg of a component that could be soldered top & bottom. If that was not possible a large via was placed that would later have a pin inserted and soldered on both sides. It was a matter of pride to design a board with no vias and no wire interconnections. A very large bellows type studio camera on rails was used to photograph the completed artwork to make the 4X reduced photo-tool directly on a photographic litho film plate (I think it could take up to 750mm square plates). All original artwork was kept so that any required modifications could be made by lifting and re-arranging the tape and decals on the original artwork. There was no silkscreen or soldermask produced at the company I worked - all boards were hand placed and soldered.

Tektronics, Hewlett Packard, Fluke, Rohde and Schwartz and Racal. Thank goodness I had the opportunity to use them all at their peak in the 70s and 80s.

Their board making technology is primitive compared to what we do today, but a great deal of Tektronix equipment made in the 60s is still working perfectly. The quality of their circuit boards, and of every aspect of their construction, stands the test of time with ease. Nobody ever made better, more intrinsically reliable electronics than Tektronix during the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Lucked out in hi school and learned to design and etch simple-ish PCBs back in 1974-78 in electronics shop class! However, as a job it was a lot tougher, not fun and games, almost pulling my hair out to cram MSI & LSI ICs shoulder to shoulder into tight PCBs fast and not make any track errors! Thanks to my hi school instructor Bill Ashton!

I have been designing pc boards for 45 years now. I remember well the days of light tables and 'decals'. Taping by hand...But now, its all done by CAD, of course. With the densities of todays boards, I dont think it would even be possible to do them by hand anymore. Thanks for a walk down memory lane.

@the_eminent_Joshua_E_Hrouda

5 жыл бұрын

Ron Shaw would be fun to give it a try!

@mmpiforall5913

4 жыл бұрын

Yup, taping up PCB artwork at 2x using Bishop graphics materials including red & blue mylar tapes and IC pad patterns for double sided PCBs in 1 artwork, multilayer a different ball game! Still got some from 1978! LOL

@mmpiforall5913

4 жыл бұрын

Light tables helped you see thru the layers of paper and mylar, but also to see if cut lines on tapes actually created fine gaps (.001 - .003") that etch out and create open circuits where you least expected it!

@Scrogan

Жыл бұрын

I think with a 4x or 8x grid it would be quite doable. Heck I’m hand-painting 0.4mm pitch (micro USB sockets) directly on boards, with only some difficulty.

That guy doing the Circuit board Art work was named Otto, hence Otto-Routing :->)

@pomonabill220

5 жыл бұрын

DOH!

Great stuff. I could watch these old Tek videos all day. How this video got 8 dislikes is beyond my comprehension.

This video is so freaking awesome - I always wondered how they did this before computers and CAD/CAM became available. I think this video should be a candidate for digital restoration - the colors, fading, brightness, etc. make it hard to make out things sometimes.

The upbeat optimistic music

I found this really fascinating. Thanks to Mr Carlsons Lab's channel for sending me to this link. I wish I found it sooner, lots of new videos to watch now! Thank you

I respect Tektronix. Best measuring instruments even now.

In the late 70's part of my job was doing pcb layouts with tapes,interesting,sometimes it would go well and layout all worked in harmony,other times you would scratch head and do some in depth thinking,The idea was to achieve a layout with no links and no right angle tracks,as these could lift during production.only 2 layer boards.I loved my job and stayed with the company for 13 years,doing various jobs ,prototypes,with wire wrap,field trials.Inspection,testing.Drawings.This film brought back good times.Thank you.

This is amazing. When I was young (about 25 yrs ago) I drew the PCB very similarly. At that time, it was awesome, CAD systems did not exist. Each line, each hole was drawn by own hand.

@rock3tcatU233

4 жыл бұрын

You're telling me that in 1995 there were no ECAD systems? Even mechanical engineers had access to 2D & 3D MCAD back in the 60's and 70's.

@the8bitpc_805

4 жыл бұрын

@@rock3tcatU233 That is true, but not everyone had access to such programs. Most things TV, radio, etc. were made this way. This method was used in the 80's - for sure in our country.

@mfx1

3 жыл бұрын

@@rock3tcatU233 They were generally very expensive. My first CAD software was XCad on the Amiga, late 80's and even that was a big spend for me, I plotted boards on an A3 pen plotter using special pens and latex based ink onto polyester film (if you weren't scrupulous about cleaning the ink out after, you basically wrote off an expensive pen), for some boards I plotted them at 2x or 4x and then got them photo reduced by a local printer, now I design a board in a few hours, email it to China and wait for it to show up in the post.

@vasilis8208

Жыл бұрын

Me too, I used a waterproof marker to draw the reacks & pads.

People, this was a time when America was GREAT! We did a lot of what is done today by automation by hand then. Tektronics was the world most advanced and highly quality controlled manufacturing that is sot of mimic today. Those days are gone and the young will never know. Sad!

I worked in PCB for a year and this was very interesting to me how far it has come. Amazing skills and technology.

Incredible skill and craftmanship - for all that we have gained in convenience through technology, I can't help feel that the inconvenience of it all was an inspiration to invention. Fascinating times indeed and a quality documentary the likes of which are rarely seen nowadays. Thank you for preserving and sharing this.

Old computer documentaries. My favorite subgenre of horror.

@25:38 - In the future, a machine may replace many of these hand operations. Yup.

@yusufpraditya

6 жыл бұрын

And we are in that future

@osgeld

6 жыл бұрын

machine ... or emerging markets with cheap labor

@altebander2767

5 жыл бұрын

And here's a video of that machine: kzread.info/dash/bejne/ZKehwdOdlcbVnqw.html Though more more processes actually save on time and material by disposing of the wires connecting the components to the board: kzread.info/dash/bejne/dJmko6-loq3diKw.html

@pomonabill220

5 жыл бұрын

I caught that and raised an eyebrow! How true!

@tanoryjakaperdana1419

3 жыл бұрын

Hi, im from the future.. in 2021 you can get 10x10cm 5pcs 2 layers pcb for only $2

I remember designng pcb's with this old method back in '78 & '79...great memories!!

@Jemiiiimmaaa

7 жыл бұрын

as a person who only uses computers for PCB design I have a lot of respect :)

Oh, please bring back the quality this shows. Makes my heart feel good to remember! Thank you for bringing this back

@mark.audacity

5 жыл бұрын

Joe Loucka Modern PCBs are way higher quality than these. :P

@mark.audacity

Жыл бұрын

yeah this is orders of magnitude worse than the cheapest PCB manufacturers now. +/- .002” is garbage…and look at all those manual steps where people have a chance to screw it up.

That's pretty cool that they used a negative of the trace as a resist, plated more copper and then gold, and used the more inert gold as the etching resist.

@jimyohe100

4 жыл бұрын

Yes. I found the gold plating in the plating process very interesting. I remember Tek progressively reducing the areas being plated with gold when they introduced selective gold plating process for switch pads and similar areas that "required" it getting gold.

Wow that’s pretty awesome AND SO MUCH WORK, wow. Simply wow... Thanks for sharing this VintageTEK

I sat down with PCB designers to show them where the traces go from 1981 to 2007. In 1995 that guy was my boss at a start up who would yell at me, "No more abstractions! Point where you want the trace!"

So amazing! It's so very cool (and enlightening) to see how the basic interfaces and workflow in the CAD tools of today map almost directly to how the original artists constructed PCBs. I found the trimming (i.e. DRC error resolution! ) of the pads at @7:08 to be especially entertaining. I only wish the video were of higher quality!

..Well....back in the 1970's, I worked at Burgmaster.....we had NC machines in the machine shop that used the same Mark Century controls like these here at...12:30....! I was an Electronic Tech. and used Tektronix 'scopes....even the Burgmaster Turret drills back then still used that punched tape...

Wow this is way back when Americans proudly stepped forward to be the leaders in the new world of technology, before they started eating exported soy and allowing all of these noble dignities to be exported to India.

This is great - I would love to see a reupload in better resolution.

The pantograph drill operator has the most tedious job of all of them.

great video, i started drafting double-sided PCBs in 1978, but I used two coulours of ink red for bottom and blue for top side, drafting was done on 2:1 scale or even instead of dotted lines and solid lines, then two coloured lamps in a lightbox could be used to see only one side or white for both. this was before 1984 when my employer bought AT&T6300 (Olivetti M24) and Smartwork PCB cad software but the 4 pen plotter with 4 colours of pens was still used .

I spent a few minutes wondering how indifferent each trace was from a 70s board until it occurred to me that they were all drawn manually.

This has to be one of my favorite videos. I love this so much

Hope if we can put hands on the original films, maybe it will be possible to watch this master piece in full hd.

Then boards cost thousands to make, now £10 for ten boards.

PCBs?! Production shortcuts, according to Zenith!

who was stupid enough to dislike this video!!

Thank you for this vid, and all of them!

Wish someone could remaster these (or whatever its called) videos into 4k. I remember watching high school films like this growing up in the 70s

@23:58 -In the future, a machine may replace many of these hand operations, many workers will stay at home, and those who will work will do so in the east.

I'm 99% sure that I have the same scope as the one in this film. The 453 was manufactured in the late 60's/early 70's. Still works very well.

@benjaminbadrakh1644

2 жыл бұрын

could be a 454 shown in the film. Who knows? I guess only Tektronix does.

Amazing how nobody in the entire factory appears to wear any protective gear. Imagine this nowadays. No gloves working with acids and stuff? No radiation protection alongside that layer thickness detector? No inhalation protector worn at where the glass-fiber boards are ground to size or where manual soldering work is done? Wow. Wonder how this affected the life expectancy of the members of the manufacturing team... well, those were the days, right?

"Much more compact, in much less space" ... (I can watch these films all day)

How awesomely appropriate that they chose Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) himself to narrate this.

Interesting that they gold plate first and then use the plating as etch resist. I think basically all modern processes apply the surface finish to a board that's already etched and has solder resist on it.

@bobweiss8682

3 жыл бұрын

It is only possible to electroplate when all the areas to be plated are electrically connected by the bulk copper. The more modern processes use electroless immersion plating, which will work with separate traces.

@rfmerrill

9 ай бұрын

​@@bobweiss8682Wow it's really been 3 years! In the meantime I've learned that modern processes sometimes *do* electroplate, but they achieve this by having temporary junctions between the nets to be electroplated that are then drilled out or routed off. A great example of this is video game cartridges, especially for the NES and Sega Genesis, which are electroplated hard gold for contact durability.

Love the Disneyesque music.

Interesting that the conductors are formed using a positive/additive process rather than a negative/subtractive one.

Hey @Vintage TEK Museum, can we get higher-red uploads of these videos? They’re great, but it’s really hard to see some of the details.

Tektronix PCBs are among the best from that era. The one seen at 27:05 is for the 1A1 plug-in unit. There are many other boards shown in this video which I don't remember though. (edit: typo removed)

@ronshaw80

7 жыл бұрын

Tektronix has always been the 'gold' standard in scopes. Very well made. I picked up a used 2215A (from the mid 80's) at a garage sale. It still works like new. Its my main workhorse scope, even though I also have a new digital scope.

@lroy730

7 жыл бұрын

Yep ! Heavy Trace ,Pads and threw holes. I have never damage a board while replacing many components on the 400 series i've worked on.. Those early Tek Scopes were designed to be repaired -recapped over and over.

@MaxKoschuh

7 жыл бұрын

I've had the 2210 :-) There is a Siemens Oscillar from the 70ies which has gold plated PCBs too. May do a teardown video on this one.

And today much less people have work, but the bosses have much more money...

grade A top shelf retrotek FROM long ago like God intended

Great video. Great information

Rip up and reroute in 69' at it's finest!

This is amazing! Is there a higher resolution version available anywhere?

Wow! What a pain in the Arse. A lot nicer and easier nowadays!

Damn ! I wish I subscribed earlier ! Excellent videos, thanks !

@jameskronenwetter7835

6 жыл бұрын

My phone wont go to site, states errors

Really Cool!

Fasvinating.

How many production man hours per board before component insertion ...

The Japanese avoided using double sided boards as much as possible: their approach was to install jumpers on the component side of the board. This reduced costs considerably, and I would believe bypassed American patents on electroless plated through hole double sided boards. The circuits were just as reliable, in some cases even more so, the Japanese products cost considerably less, and hence their eventual complete takeover of the international electronics industry.

@rfmerrill

3 жыл бұрын

You might be right but bear in mind which company made this video: Tektronix. Not exactly consumer products. Your everyday household radio was probably not made exactly the same.

@rfmerrill

3 жыл бұрын

You still see single-sided phenolic substrate boards. Often seen as cheap, but you do actually find it even in relatively high quality power supplies. I'm not 100% sure why but the relatively large components in a power supply unit makes single-sided designs easier. I also read that phenolic substrate doesn't attract dust as much as FR4 so there is better effective isolation.

@michaelroberts1120

3 жыл бұрын

I worked for many years as a technician at a television station, and I have seen single sided boards with jumpers even in professional broadcast equipment from japanese manufacturers like Sony, Hitachi, Ikegami and others, so this practice is not confined to consumer electronics only.

i love it i made my own circuit the same way

Wonderful documentary, would be good if anybody can result to remaster it with better image quality.

Great!!!!!

I still take CRT over digital oscilloscopes even with Giga sampling

It's a shame that the video quality is so poor, considering the intricate work being presented.

Old school cool

Did you not have the cut the thread at the end?

The narrator sounds like Richard M. Nixon. "I am not a crook!"

This was our way of doing things then. Until better ways were figured out..it was the best of our abilities,and skills.. We took pride in our work then..now we let machines do the skilled work..its a shame we've become so lacking today..

what is that eraser at 4:38 ?? how does it work?

@atschirner

5 жыл бұрын

My dad had this electric eraser in the '60s. It used a stick of rubber eraser about 8" long held in place by a slip collet. IT had a line cord for AC power and a switch on the barrel to activate. I think K + E was a big drafting equipment company that sold them.

@MLX1401

5 жыл бұрын

@@atschirner Wow, thanks for this detailed story! I also noticed that device and for a second thought it could be one of those obscure laser erasers. But an automatic Keuffel & Esser rubber eraser is at least as cool :D

Yes I have some telecom circuit boards and filters from the 70 is there gold in them

People complaining about the low res,cricky just look at the moon landings,they were crap res.It was hideously expensive to have high res back then,and im talking above 240P , just enjoy a marvelous film..

👌👍

I seriously gotta wonder how much ram these desktop-sized systems had, 4-8 KB?

@davidstech1445

5 жыл бұрын

Think less than 1KB.

What’s with the blackouts and different clips overlaying on each other? It feels like the edit cues were timed wrong, over and over.

upload again in HD please. One Nag: the use of "jump to black" VS "fade to black" or "fade to next" is quite horrible.

当年的高科技，到了现在也就一电子专业大学生实训的水平

"blah blah blah woooosh shish howl wheeee" best subtitle ever ! ( you tube video of a boat called tally ho)

Why not plate gold after etching ?

I wish the video was a bit clearer...

The narrator is a young Morgan Freeman.

you have to wonder how many packs of cigarettes was the minimum daily recommended number for authoritative narrative voices back then.

Would have been even better at a higher resolution than blurry, mosaic filled 240p, but thanks anyway.

Sponsored by JLpcb. Only 5$ for 10 pcb !

So all industries should be today, not just American, but the world, what is wrong with seeing American workers, creating an American product of quality and value? Automation produces big gains for only a few, creating only unemployment and poverty for many others. Other times ... some would say ... in fact you can see the results .. For me we have already done too much, I would say that the time has come to do a downgrade, I would gladly give up all the useless technology of today, just to get back to that reality. Certainly I would not allocate billions of dollars to finance a trip to Mars, down here there are far more important problems to solve, first of all, the health of the most beautiful planet in the solar system and beyond. , the earth..

21:00 ... beta particle to verify ??? Tell this to China and see the answer ;))

Great....the old routing technology was a big plus for the Brain..you need to act like a chess player.

Ever heard of CAD, duh edit 100% of you don't understand obvious sarcasm

Picture quality is terrible .

I can't watch this. Too blurry and the cuts to black are really frustrating.

Whose hi school project was this? The editing and cross fades SUCK!

I worked there, 11 years, I have to admit I got a lot of fond memories, but it was a Lowest paying lousy management place in the world. Best thing I ever did was best. Best thing I ever did was get out of that place.