The Successful Use of Breadboards for Complex Prototype Circuits

The great Bob Pease, National Semiconductor's crown jewel, wrote an article many years back that described how breadboarding can be useful for prototyping even sophisticated circuits as long as the limitations are understood and heeded. Many times I have searched the Internet looking for a picture of the breadboard I recalled seeing, but to no avail. Finally, I wrote to him asking if he remembered it and he responded by saying it is the one featured on the cover of his book, "Troubleshooting Analog Circuits." You can click on the image to the right for the full picture. Just the breadboard portion is shown below. If you would like a copy of his book, please click on the smaller thumbnail to the left.

Bob wrote, "THIS was actually the breadboard for the LM131 V-to-F converter - which I designed in 1977, and which is still being designed in, today, and is still in production. Yes, it can be used to convert voltages to F - and then you use a counter, to make a very linear digital conversion - or for F-to-V."

...and of course his famous, "I really do like SOLDERING as my programming language."

(Click for larger version)

Bob, known to be a gracious and magnanimous person, sent me the signed covers shown at the right and bottom of the page. 

The world suffered a major loss in 2011 when Bob was killed while driving his famous 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. He was 70 years old. Here is Silicon Valley's The Mercury News newspaper report.

How to Drive into Accidents and How Not To                      Lab Notes 2005

Posted October 27, 2021
(updated from original post on 7/3/2007)