Breadboard

A breadboard is a construction base for prototyping of electronics. Originally the word referred to a literal bread board, a polished piece of wood used for slicing bread. In the 1970s the solderless breadboard (a.k.a. plugboard, a terminal array board) became available and nowadays the term 'breadboard' is commonly used to refer to these.Inside breadboard 1Inside breadboard 2Inside breadboard 3Inside breadboard 4Inside breadboard 5Inside breadboard 6Example of use of a 'Breadboard' in electronics construction. QST Magazine August 1922A solderless breadboard with a completed circuit.A binary counter wired up on 2 solderless breadboards.Logical 4-bit adder with output bits linked to LEDs on a typical breadboard. A breadboard is a construction base for prototyping of electronics. Originally the word referred to a literal bread board, a polished piece of wood used for slicing bread. In the 1970s the solderless breadboard (a.k.a. plugboard, a terminal array board) became available and nowadays the term 'breadboard' is commonly used to refer to these. Because the solderless breadboard does not require soldering, it is reusable. This makes it easy to use for creating temporary prototypes and experimenting with circuit design. For this reason, solderless breadboards are also popular with students and in technological education. Older breadboard types did not have this property. A stripboard (Veroboard) and similar prototyping printed circuit boards, which are used to build semi-permanent soldered prototypes or one-offs, cannot easily be reused. A variety of electronic systems may be prototyped by using breadboards, from small analog and digital circuits to complete central processing units (CPUs). In the early days of radio, amateurs nailed bare copper wires or terminal strips to a wooden board (often literally a board to slice bread on) and soldered electronic components to them. Sometimes a paper schematic diagram was first glued to the board as a guide to placing terminals, then components and wires were installed over their symbols on the schematic. Using thumbtacks or small nails as mounting posts was also common. Breadboards have evolved over time, with the term now being used for all kinds of prototype electronic devices. For example, US Patent 3,145,483, was filed in 1961 and describes a wooden plate breadboard with mounted springs and other facilities. US Patent 3,496,419, was filed in 1967 and refers to a particular printed circuit board layout as a Printed Circuit Breadboard. Both examples refer to and describe other types of breadboards as prior art. The breadboard most commonly used today is usually made of white plastic and is a pluggable (solderless) breadboard. It was designed by Ronald J. Portugal in 1971. Alternative methods to create prototypes are point-to-point construction (reminiscent of the original wooden breadboards), wire wrap, wiring pencil, and boards like the stripboard. Complicated systems, such as modern computers comprising millions of transistors, diodes, and resistors, do not lend themselves to prototyping using breadboards, as their complex designs can be difficult to lay out and debug on a breadboard. Modern circuit designs are generally developed using a schematic capture and simulation system, and tested in software simulation before the first prototype circuits are built on a printed circuit board. Integrated circuit designs are a more extreme version of the same process: since producing prototype silicon is costly, extensive software simulations are performed before fabricating the first prototypes. However, prototyping techniques are still used for some applications such as RF circuits, or where software models of components are inexact or incomplete.