[zengargoyle]

This is why you fail. Thirty years ago I could make a wire wrapped 68000k board that did nothing but play music. CE/CS was different back then. I'd cut pins and solder in chips to twiddle the filters on audio output. You could know the entire process from power on to running of your computer and it was easy to change bits even down to the hardware level like adding a 'no place to put it unless you build it yourself' CPU/MPU/RAM upgrade and make it work. Adjust your NTSC video output, just cut that resistor in lieu of replacing it with something really high resistance, it'll be better. Let's build our own new high speed serial port for MIDI. How about a graphics co-processor that only does Mandlebrot calculations, let's build three of them. Only few of the younger generation comprehend the old ways. And the machines have changed to fewer chips and machines have turned into system on a chip. It's a bit of a shame.

[Dracophoenix]

Where did one acquire your kind of knowledge outside of a university? Were there any books or USENET groups that you visited to attain it?

[KerrAvon]

You would build a wire wrapped 68000 board in 1992? Isn’t that a tiny bit late to expend that much effort on a 68000?

[relaxing]

Not at all. I was still building embedded hardware around 68k 10 years later. There are undoubtedly new products being built around 68k today.

If all you want to do is synthesize music the 68k is perfect.

If you’re taking issue with wire wrap, there just weren’t general purpose dev boards available back then. You were expected to be able to roll your own.

[airbreather]

Wire wrap is the most reliable form of construction, used by NASA for many years for this reason - the wrapping of the wire around the square pegs creates a small cold weld at every corner.

Plus when mulitlayer boards were not really a thing, wirewrap gives you all the layers you want, more or less.