On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 3:12 PM, KPL wrote: > I'm just curios, how did they design those curved traces at the time? > Most possibly they did not have any serious computer-based design > tools yet, but those seem extremely difficult to draw manually on > paper too, using ordinary drawing tools. > And if drawn by hand, why did they need those curvy lines, if straight > ones would be much easier? They are not computer drawn, circuit boards of that era were laid out by hand, using tape and dots on plactic sheets (usually at 4X desired size and photoreduced onto the PC board). So, if you wanted to connect two pads, you started out by putting dots at the pad locations, then connected them with tape, which was like a very narrow masking tape. It was easy to make curved lines, in fact it was hard to avoid them. And, yes, I did a board layout like that back when I was in college. Bill -- Psst... Hey, you... Buddy... Want a kitten? straycatblues.petfinder.org -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist