[HECnet] punched tape

[Dave McGuire]

On 04/20/2013 12:14 PM, Brett Bump wrote:
Oooold people. ;-)   I was still in high school at that time.   My introduction
to a paper-tape device came about 4 years later (in college) when my physics
prof and I put together a Heathkit H-11 (PDP-11/03 really) that had the
nastiest paper-tape device ever created by man.   I think we could get it to
load maybe 1 time out of 20. We then got the 8 inch floppy drive functional
and I think the paper-tape device was relagated to the trash heap.

Ah, bet he's kickin' himself now!   I'd easily drop $1K for one of those,
and the few that have hit the market recently have gone for more than that.

$1000.00?   For this?:

http://ns1758.ca/winch/heathkit0029.jpg

  In a heartbeat.

It was a nightmare. lol

  Uh.   I'm not looking for one to use for storage for my mail server or
anything. ;)

And the box containing the 11/03 wasn't much
better.   Except for the dust, our H-11 looked exactly like this one:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/heath11.jpg

  Yup.   They sucked.   But they are very rare, and fairly historically
important, as the only minicomputer (architecturally speaking) to be sold as
a kit.   (even though the CPU board itself was supplied assembled, unmodified,
from DEC)

And you haven't had joy in your life until you've put together and tried
to type on that tinker-toy Heathkit terminal (clickity-klackity).   Don't
forget you can't delete characters by using backspace, you use rubout:

http://www.thepcmuseum.net/comp_images/photo_HeathkitH89_02.JPG

  Yup, the H-9.   Mine is the only one I know of that actually works.

I "DID" like that 8" drive however as it would format floppies. ;-)

  Yup.   Those are almost as scarce as the H-10, unfortunately.   I have the
not-quite-as-scarce H17 (dual 5.25" hard-sectored floppy) on one of my H-8s.

The DEC paper-tape drive on the other hand, worked like a dream.   It
is probably worth the $1k+ to get it:

http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~djg/htdocs/pc04/frontasmb.jpg

  Oh yes.   And they go for a lot more than $1K.

  I myself have an HP optical (300CPS) paper tape reader with a homebrew
Positive I/O Bus interface for the PDP-8/e.   It works a treat.

                                -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA