When I saw the video about Samtec manufacturing the pins, I went over to the site and found the awesome tool for (semi)custom connectors. Used it to make a simple connector pair for an instrument internal power+LVDS bus I was working on... a few weeks later perfect application specific connectors showed up for the price it would have cost for something (not quite right) off the shelf. Great.

Kudos to Samtec for getting behind this project!!

That was so awesome of Samtec. Next time I need a nice aerospace connector for something I know where I am going!

Wire wrapping remained in use well into the 80s. I built and installed the all the control desks and some of the computer racks that controlled and monitored the electrification network of all the London Underground stations, there was one desk for each tube line. Every connection in those panels were wire wrapped.... 10s of thousands of connections on each panel. Apparently I did too good of a job on the first one and had to do the rest... Happy days :) Love this channel, keep up the great work guys, brings back lots of memories...

When I saw the first couple of vids, I had no idea of the level of effort to reproduce every detail; custom fabrication, research, research, research, detail upon detail. Hours and hours of minutia. Careful steps to do no harm. A Smithsonian level restoration would pale in comparison, and cost many thousands of dollars. A true labor of love.

Kudos to Samtec for supporting the efforts on this. It's great to see how this is progressing. I still have my wire wrap tools from my days in Burroughs Machines back in the 70's.

Awesome that Samtec spent the money and time to produce these pins to help bring back a piece of history!

Same connectors that were used in the rear of the display assembly. For my DSKY Display Project I had found some NOS male connectors in assemblies, but never could get any females. Well done.

This whole series is amazing! SAMTEC knocked it out of the park!

10,000 kudos for Samtec! AND to you and the rest of the team!

I work with samtec parts a lot in my work and knew they made high quality stuff but I'm amazed they took on this project. It's nice that some big companies out there can be this great.

I think I speak for everybody on this planet - this series is probably the most amazing thing ever created and I’m so grateful that you are documenting it for us to follow :)

Outstanding !! Well done to Samtec for their support. We still wire wrap in Telephone Exchanges on the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) for the E side and Concentrator connections. Many a happy hour I’ve spent doing it !! Making sure you have right cable ie Terminating Type (TT), the right gun head ( stripping or non stripping) etc.....

The fire control computer I operated and maintained in the US Navy was wire wrapped back plane construction very similar to your AGC. Very reliable. Thanks for another great video. And thanks to Samtec!

This series is so great because it shows how much effort went into the original, and how many people with such incredible skill and intelligence had to come together, to make just the computer a reality. I always have wondered what the process of research and development must have been like leading up to the Apollo missions and I feel like watching you guys reverse engineer, test, and tinker with the computer has given some insight into what it might have been like.

Admirable execution. Respect to all you people on this project.

Just watched “MIT Science Reporter - Computer for Apollo” on You Tube - very interesting how the computer was designed, manufactured and tested. Also, “34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk”. FYI - if you loose focus, simply place your other hand directly behind the part you want to focus on.

Way to go Samtec! Thank you for stepping up for history. And you guys are both worth your weight in gold.

This has become such a saga... Every new piece to the puzzle is a thrill! This is honestly the best project series I've seen to date on the YT.

Wire wrap popular in the 60's. We were still prototyping and building operational boards as late as the early 80's

I'm in total awe that you were able to find a company willing to go through so much work for a special project! Way to go Samtec!

Samtec you are a winning company .

I happened upon the later episodes and enjoyed them so much that I went back to the beginning. I once worked for a large UK mainframe company called ICL, and the wiring shop was worked entirely by mature ladies. As a young programmer I was advised never to visit alone, especially around Christmas, where a special reception might occur... Less politically correct and rather more lurid, perhaps, but those were the mores of certain parts of industry in the 1970s. But I digress, as old men are wont to do - your project is just draw-dropping in ambition, skill, resourcefulness and fascination - well done, all, and thank you!

Good Job. I really like Samtec parts, they never give me a headache when it comes time to plug stuff together and power it up.

Terrific work by all concerned, the attention to detail and the sheer nerdiness of making your own pin inserter, wonderful.

Fantastic support from Samtec. This is a spectacular channel and a wonderful effort. Bravo!

I can't tell you how much I love this series. Fantastic!!!!!

Why are there thumbs-down? What an insult.

Hat's off to Samtec!!

Astonishing attention to detail guys, well done, loving this. Still destroying the 'naysayers'.

Three cheers for Samtec!

Thank you Samtec. BZ

Upmost respect to you guys for taking on such a project, and thanks for taking us along with you!

Thanks. Wire wrapping was both quicker and more reliable than soldered joints, when done properly. The wire is cut by the pillar corners, forming an airtight contact, essentially welding itself to the pillar, at multiple points along the wrap

This is so insanely awesome! I absolutely love this series/project!

Like the comment about the SamTec guy never having seen a wire wrap pin before. We used wire wrap for PWAs and back planes well into the 90's at Texas Instruments, Western Geophysical, and Input/Output. These were common on seismic exploration systems used for oil & gas exploration and used in remote, rugged conditions. At TI, we has several large horizontal and vertical Gardner Denver machine run using punched tape to wrap the large back panels and smaller circuit boards. Later, we had smaller semi-automated that just pointed to the pin and told the operator were to wire wrap and what length of wire to use. Again, driven by punched tape. We also used a system by Multi-wire, as a step up from wire wrapped boards. These gave us multi-layer PCB equiv with a power and ground plane, without all the hand-taping required prior to modern CAD systems. Of coarse back then a screaming fast circuit ran at an astounding 10MHz!

I saw the teletype restoration and thought afterwards what cool thing are you going to restore next. I did not get disappointed when i saw that you where going to restoe NASA hardware

Brilliant work, thank you Samtec!

Great Job, Well Done Samtec.

Man... You work for an awesome company! 👍🏼😮😊

You guys are awesome! I'm wondering when you will get a reaction control system! 😁

Amazing job guys. Kudos to Samtec.

4:50 Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Joy for a life. I'm happy for you guys. Exceptional work.

The WECO 3ESS Switch at the Communications Museum in Seattle, has a lot of wire wrapped connections in it. It was explained that this made it easier to have set up manufacturing changes rather than being forced to redesign and manufacture from scratch, a PWB backplane or individual circuit boards.

Nice, never thought this project would have parts done in my home state. Glad to hear your making more progress,

So proud of these guys

Loving this !

Marc's got the contacts to connect with and get things done. 😛

I was waiting for your video. I love them!!

Congrats on getting a new connector

You are living my dream!

good job to samtec, doing faithful reproductions like that are a big headache

M.O.O.N. - That spells Samtec!

Damn. You guys are so lucky that you can work on the AGC!

Very nice custom work. I bet they loved this challenge.

@3:57 Marc: "Want to see if A fits into B?" Mike: "Yes..."

nice job guys!

That's awesome!

So interesting!

Excellent 🙂 👍

Absolutely L O V E your D E D I C A T I O N and H A R D W O R K ! ! !

Excellent!,

Awesome!

Awesome! 😉👌

In contrast to the people who say "I was about to go to bed, then I saw this pop up," I was *already* in bed, woke up, and checked KZfaq, where I saw this. So nyah.

Wow! Knowing how much tooling can cost, I am sure you must have had some influence in the decision! ;-) Good job!

One more step forward in the AGC restoration. Nice hoodie. Where did you get it?

Marc is getting one step closer to the Moon!

wirewrap is a very good technology. need square pins ,so you have very safe connection , 4 contact points per turn. after few turns you have several safe thing there ..!! used a lot 30 years ago. I still have the tools.

how did you ensure the pins were in the right direction ?

Wait, you are not going to wirewrap the connection to your breakout board? :D I did not even know, this technique existed before this video. Thank you for your great work!

I

Are these pins going to be an orderable part? Are these the same contacts as used on the modules as well? I really like Samtec for board to board and JTAG.

Do you think it'll be ready in time for the 50th anniversary as originally hoped?

Wire wrapping is still in use today inside CFL lamps, the contacts from the tube are wire wrapped on the driver board not soldered.

Samtec! Good on ya! Hmmm, are they publicly traded? Cuz their stock just went up in my book. And to the rest of the gang amazing series of videos.

I'm surprised MIT doesn't have a box of these connectors buried somewhere in a storage room totally forgotten.

what do you use for editing?

LOVELY job on those. Like, delicious.

Can mikes thing also emulate the memory, or is there still another plan to get that part working?

i saw Applied Science had made a DSKY display, are you planning on getting one setup on your AGC?

..Didn't the AGC have a "star locator" input- visual star alignment/positioning?

Woah

What about coupling real AGC to the NASSP simulation? NASSP already uses VAGC emulator so it should be somehow possible.

Don't know what wire wrap is? Making me feel old.

how did you convince Samtec to to this for you, as you are a manager of some kind (if I am not mistaken) did you just give orders or did you have to ask your superviser for this?

Woohoo! Did you machine the acrylic connector body?

Hey! have you guys gotten in touch with Fran'sLab about DSKY displays? and/or Applied Science who has figured out a clever manufacturing method for a flourescent DS.

but....... how much did cost this entire project?

I really wish the Tshirts were available in other colors...

Why is wire wrapping not used in hobby electronics today? I would expect it to be at least as usable as through-hole PCBs: you need a different set of specialized tools, still need to devote some attention to every pin, but have way less problems with routing (incl. less problem with stray capacitances, though stray inductances remain) and possibly have less of an issue with cold solder joints.

4:13 was it good for you too? Time for a cigarette...

Hey if you guys need a wire wrapping tool. I I have one. It's a hand wrap to to who

So..., When Raytheon and NASA are going to make the big BBQ?... July 21th?

They call it "original copy" in China

At present, someone on eBay is selling these types of connectors which were removed from equipment (eBay item 292282754282).

Don't bend them 😂

Contrary to deniers claims, when you have the specs and drawings, you can resurrect just about any technology.., :)

You're going to solder it after you made wire-wrap pins? Real men wire-wrap. Actually, they hired women for that work, and at 50 cents to the dollar! Now I am in serious trouble...(don't hit me, I'm praying).