Post Augs3DoTT0H08PpWvw by rrmutt@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by rrmutt@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #Augs3DoTT0H08PpWvw by rrmutt@mastodon.social
       2025-05-31T15:15:53Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       My first job out of college was at Teradyne, a company that makes PCB and semiconductor testers. Had a nostalgia jag and looked up pictures of the bonkers PCBs that went into their equipment. (I was writing test automation software: with hindsight I wish I had worked with the HW folks, I would have learned a lot!)#pcbs #retrocomputing
       
 (DIR) Post #Augs3JUUMDqrkAWecC by rrmutt@mastodon.social
       2025-05-31T15:30:19Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       The electronics for PCB testing were super gnarly because the system would test each IC IN PLACE on the circuit board. A vacuum would suck the PCB down over a bed-of-nails fixture to contact each IC pad, overdriving any other input signals AT SPEED. So each channel had a high-current high-speed driver and a big chunk of memory for test patterns and expected outputs.