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The Electronics Inside
Documents REMEX Paper Tape Drive Teardown -- The EIectronics Inside 38
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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
  • Date Created: 4 May 2021 1:28 PM Date Created
  • Last Updated Last Updated: 30 Dec 2020 8:24 AM
  • Views 3272 views
  • Likes 4 likes
  • Comments 16 comments
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REMEX Paper Tape Drive Teardown -- The EIectronics Inside 38

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Continuing with our history of data storage, we are going back - way back - to see how punched paper tape storage worked.

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Top Comments

  • DAB
    DAB over 4 years ago in reply to a531016 +3
    ASR33 goes back to the 1950's at least. They were using an early version in the 1940's and I believe there was some usage even before then. They go way back, but they were perfect for sending ASCII messages…
  • DAB
    DAB over 4 years ago in reply to mr_widget +3
    Paper tape worked fine for small projects. It was easy to carry around, you could write notes on it and as long as you were careful, it would last for years. We did a lot of amazing things back in those…
  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to a531016 +3
    "...I'd love to get hold of a complete old computer like a PDP8..." In the meantime there are always the PiDP-8 and PiDP-11 kits... PiDP-8 https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8 PiDP-11 https…
  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 3 years ago

    May be of interest - interfacing a 1960's punched paper tape reader to a PIC microcontroller.

    Interfacing a 1967 Paper Tape Reader
    https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/interfacing-a-1960s-paper-tape-reader-part-1

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  • a531016
    a531016 over 4 years ago in reply to colporteur

    Awesome! I love hearing stories like these, thank you so much for sharing!

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  • colporteur
    colporteur over 4 years ago

    Thank you for a tour of some of the electronics I worked on in my career.

     

    The teletype picture caused me to shudder. One such beast sat at a weather station at 64 degress lat, in northern Canada, in 1983. Small pins, as you described in your video, sensed the holes in the paper to read the data. The paper dust in the grease would cause the pins to bind. SOB to clean and not bend the pins!

     

    The board edge connector immediately took me back to our company training facility. After equipment theory instruction, students would be sent into a lab with the equipment. Instructors would have cards withe cellophane tape over pins on the edge connectors to simulate faults. The more devious instructors would run wires from the pins on the edge connectors to a switch panel in order to switch faults in and out.

     

    A basic troubleshooting skill. Actually, if you really got stumped with a fault and time was running out. Pull a card and look for tape. Well you didn't tell the instructor that. You just found the pin with the tape, looked on your schematic to determine the cause. Phew solved that one in the time limit.

     

    Again thanks for a revisit of my life so many years ago.

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to a531016

    "...I'd love to get hold of a complete old computer like a PDP8..."

     

    In the meantime there are always the PiDP-8 and PiDP-11 kits...

    PiDP-8

    https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8

     

    PiDP-11

    https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11

     

     

    Video of the PiDP-8 being programmed via its octal switches:

     

    PiDP-8 tour and demo

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMRDAD1JNWo 

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  • DAB
    DAB over 4 years ago in reply to a531016

    I might have some old boards from a PDP-8, but I no longer have the rack or boxes.

     

    DAB

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  • dougw
    dougw over 4 years ago in reply to a531016

    The PDP-8 I used could be programmed using toggle switches on the front panel.

    You can still buy more modern ("single chip") versions of the architecture if anyone is looking for a retro project...

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  • a531016
    a531016 over 4 years ago in reply to DAB

    I'm a little jealous of these stories, I'd love to get hold of a complete old computer like a PDP8...

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  • a531016
    a531016 over 4 years ago in reply to dougw

    Developing a tape punching machine that will run at high speed sounds like a challenge even with todays technology. I wonder if there is a project video in trying one day?

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  • DAB
    DAB over 4 years ago in reply to mr_widget

    Paper tape worked fine for small projects.

    It was easy to carry around, you could write notes on it and as long as you were careful, it would last for years.

     

    We did a lot of amazing things back in those days.

     

    I was doing image processing on a PDP-11 in the early 1970's.

     

    DAB

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  • mr_widget
    mr_widget over 4 years ago

    Back in the '80s,I was working at CompuPro in Hayward, CA. I was amazed that during a visit to a contract machine shop in Berkeley, called Graysix, that the turret punch/bender making the clamshell steel enclosures (CompuPro 10) was being fed paper tape for the G code instructions, and that the paper tape punch was programmed on a DEC PDP-8, of all things!

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