Steve Pillwein wrote:

> I used hot-melt glue over the solder joints to re-inforce the cable so
> it can be inserted and removed quickly.

  *Not* a wise move.  I just did that in my little light sequencer and
now want to get the stuff off so I can do the job properly with epoxy
(as I did when I made my first computer project 20 years ago with the
SC/MP ... sob!).

  Why?  Because the hot-melt does not harden sufficiently to prevent the
wires moving at the solder junction and breaking, and will make it even
harder to repair when they do!  In particular, the pressure of insertion
pushes individual pins up and down within the header pin strip.

  The thermoplastic carrier of the pin strip is purely to hold the pins
until soldered into a PCB; it is not made to withstand mechanical
stress, especially after soldering.  It may look like a neat "plug", but
it isn't!  Encapsulated in solid *epoxy* however, it will suffice.

  Next faux pas - the header pins may fit in the nylon "breadboard", but
they won't fit in anything else, especially not a machined-pin IC socket
or a piece cut therefrom.  Bother!  My second-line protyping is, you
see, Veroboard (matches the breadboard in some ways) but I wanted a
socket to fit the header "plug".

> After reading PIC' up the Pace and author David Benson's suggestion of
> makiing an 84 on a board for experimenting, I made a PC-board with a
> 16C84, a 4mhz oscillator, a reset button, and an in-circuit
> programming header that interfaces with my PIC-1a programmer.  All the
> port lines and power connections are brought out to a 90-degree
> 0.10" header which plugs easily into a breadboard and frees up a lot
> of breadboard real-estate for the rest of the circuit.  I call it the
> '84-Board.

  Resembles a Simmstick!  http://www.dontronics.com/dt101.html
--
  Cheers,
        Paul B.