The circuits were wired together with tinned copper roughly in the shape of the schematic.
I still do this for those projects where they just provide you a image for you to etch a pcb
I hate etching pcb's so ill take bus wire (and thank GOD radio shack started selling it again) and usually lay it out on a perfboard smd style, but there's been a few times doing it "air core" like this
Glad to know I am not some weirdo (well, in this respect anyway)