ORDERED HOUSING THAT SHOULD BE COMPATIBLE WITH SLT BACKPLANES
Conor Krukosky had found a housing that appears to fit, as he has a long term project to create his own SLT cards. I ordered a couple of them so that I can do some experimenting. These are free hanging, which does mean I have some mechanical issues to content with in order to attach these to a PCB so it can be plugged in and out of the backplane socket.
It would use thin wire-wrap (30 gauge) wire to span from PCB pads to the connector pins. I have to work out a good way to affix the housings on the end of the PCB in the correct spacing. The other issue with this methodology is that for a single size SLT card, the cost is about $13 for the connector and pins, not prohibitive for a few cards.
For Conor's project to replace about 300 cards to repopulate his 1130, the costs add up especially when you add in the PCB cost plus the components to go on them. If you figure $40 per SLT card, which is probably low, then the cost for the 1130 card complement would be around $12,000.
The IBM housing has features on the ends that key it so the card can't be inserted upside down into a card slot. I have to work out how the housing I just bought will work with the backplane keying, which might require some modification of the housing to make it fit.
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