[HECnet] punched tape

[Brett Bump]

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. The 8-inch floppy drives ran the Heath branded RT-11 V02.

About a year later was when our resident math guru (Name Drop) Keith Olson
moved to Montana and handed us the keys to the PDP-11/20. We actually USED the paper-tape device on that machine (because it REALLY worked).   I loved making my assembler students load an absolute loader, EDIT-11, MARCO-11, LINK-11 and have them paper-tape punch out ONE of their project, if for no other reason then to show them how nice having a disk operating system was.   I still have digital copies of the DEC paper-tape software, but sadly after I left the college, I was told the paper-tape was tossed in the trash and the PDP-11's (11/20, 2 11/45's and a 11/70) were disected for the cabinets and power distribution supplies (sad).

Brett

Side note: Keith (KE7BWR) is now retired and living in Utah.

On Sat, 20 Apr 2013, h vlems wrote:

Paul, we share a common background. I learned Algol on a B6700, which succeeded the ELX8. Some of the flexowriters were still there, early 1976.
The B6700 could read and punch papertape but mostly for data I think. Programming was done on cards. If you were lucky your account was upgraded for CANDE and you could
use a terminal.  
hans
It is called the TU/e for decades but my generation still says TH...
Van: Paul_Koning at Dell.com
Verzonden: vrijdag 19 april 2013 20:46 PM
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Onderwerp: Re: [HECnet] punched tape
On Apr 19, 2013, at 1:48 PM, Lee Gleason wrote:
>
> How many people on this list have ever used paper tape at a job? My first computer job we used it to control phototypesetting machines. When an 11/70 was added to the
mix of gear there, we ordered it with paper tape readers and punches on it to help in transitioning away from the paper tape only gear it was replacing.
That was probably 6 bit tape -- most typesetters I've seen that were fed with tape used 6 bit tape.
My first programs were written on paper tape -- Flexowriter editing papertape typewriter/reader/punch machines, with a character set optimized for Algol 60. That was at
the Technical University Eindhoven, then known as THE -- which is where the operating system by that name came from. It was a batch system: paper tape in, line printer
output. Magnetic tapes available in theory but rarely used, plus a drum for paging. Processor was a Philips (Electrologica) EL-X8, a 27 bit machine with a rather exotic
I/O architecture that I never really understood.
BTW, Flexowriters are great machines. Teletype Corporation never built anything remotely as reliable as those -- certainly not the cruft known as Model 33, and even a
Model 35 isn't as good.
Semaphores (in the computer science sense) were invented there.
paul