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Ralph Mowery

In article , says...

It's demonstrably faster for repeated mods to lots of units.
But you can't easily/visually verify that you have a reliable connection.
There's melted plastic in/around the joint.

30 years ago, parts and traces were a lot bigger. Today,
finding a place to solder anything is a challenge.

The small parts is why I bought a stereo microscope a couple of years
ago. Best $ 290 I have spent in a long time. I was about 65 when I
started on the SMD circuits. Even use it now to wire the 1/8 inch phone
plugs. Now some of them have 4 wires going to them.

I remember wiring up a ST-6 rtty demodulator on a piece of pref board
and point to point wiring and did not even wear glasses. About 6 or so
ICs and lots of parts and a few transistors. Now I can hardly see the
parts with my glasses on.

With the proper equipmnet it is not too difficult to build up kits that
have the PC board already made. Sometimes I think it is even easier
than the old transistor circuits.