[robomartin]

> I truly do not understand the appeal of proto board.

I didn't understand your comment until I looked at the pictures in the article. To me "proto board" has always meant wire-wrapping. I lost count of how many of my designs back in the dark ages started as wire-wrapped protoboards. CPU cards, drive controllers, memory cards, motor drivers, keypads, I/O cards and myriad other projects.

In fact, I still have my OK Industries wire-wrapping gun[0]. I still have pins, sockets, boards, wire, etc. I probably reach for them once every couple of years these days. On those rare occasions when it's the middle of the night or a weekend and I have to wire-up a small board (nothing substantial). It's fast and works well for the right kind of project.

The problem with wire-wrap (and breadboards) is that, once clock frequencies (or frequencies in general in analog designs) rise the capacitive and inductive effects quickly conspire against you and make it impossible to build circuits that work. This is where the OP's approach can provide a bit of a bridge between a full PCB and wire-wrap/breadboard. I have done hand-wired (just like the article) boards with twisted pairs and carefully routed point-to-point connections. I never used magnet wire, just kynar or teflon wire-wrap wire.

[0] Mine is exactly like the one in figure 4 in this article. It works with spools of wire and auto-strips as you wire a board. It is very fast. Not sure why the article shows pre-stripped wire, the tool does the work for you auto-magically. I didn't read the article, maybe they are using a bit that does not strip (why?).

https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/wire_wrap_is_aliv...