What if The first circuit board was never made?

[Ethanadams]

What if The first circuit board was never made?

What would be some major differences

and no fallout references please

[lajoswinkler]

Then we'd have stacks.

But a board is a neccessary evolution.

[Alshain]

Then the second circuit board would have been the first. Nothing would change.

If something can be invented, it will be. It's just a matter of who does it first.

[ZedNova]

In fallout there were circuit boards, it's just that micro transistors were never invented.

Sorry i couldn't help it.

[Nuke]

before we used circuit boards or the cordwood arrangement (its still technically a pcb but it exchanges serviceability for compact arrangement), we just crammed all the components into a box with a ratsnest of wires (usually solid wire for rigidity). sometimes peg board or particle board with custom holes were used to make things neater and allow more durable wire runs and also gave you a good sturdy piece of material to mount your tube sockets. then you have classic breadboarding which was used for the hobby end of things, literally you used a board for bread (the kind you eat). you would get an old one (or any old piece of wood) and some nails and run all your traces between them with wire wrap (the term breadboard is now used for those plastic prototyping boards that are quire nifty). you also had a lot of terminal blocks and wire wrap busses (i took apart a 1970s stereo and was amazed how much wire wrap it used, the only chip used was a large sip amplifier ic). you could have also done totally awesome stuff like this.

pcbs came around long before chips did, so i dont know how you would deal with those without the invention of pcbs. i figure those packages would be build for either wire wrap or soldering or possibly extending the tube sockets that were used at the time. i think the invention of the pcb was just a logical progression of technology. you had all these components and you simply needed a way to make sense out of the mess of point to point construction. after trying a hodgepodge of methods we finally decided that pcb was the one that made the most sense.