[HECnet] punched tape

[Gregg Levine]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 4:21 PM, Lee Gleason <lee.gleason at comcast.net> wrote:
Yah, it was 6 bit tape for text preparation, with 8 bit tape used for
programming & setup of the phototypesetters. Meant a lot of messing around
with the tape readers, since one width of tape expected the feed holes to
align with the center of the data holes, and the other width expected the
feed holes to align with the leading edge of the data holes.

Speaking of Flexowriters, we had one of those for doing commercial mass
mailings that looked typewritten - I still have one of the 576 bit core
memories it used. Each   memory board was about 8X11 inches. The individuals
cores are really big on these boards.

Good times...when you weren't dozens of levels removed from the actual
physic of computation.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at comcast.net





-----Original Message----- From: Paul_Koning at Dell.com
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 1:46 PM

To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: 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


Hello!
Interesting. I recall a PDP-8 based system who accepted 8 level (or 8
bit) punched paper tape from a terminal and also for composition. That
was fed in through the reader on a Model 33. Naturally after the
terminal (the teletype) would cue the operator that the system
finished reading the job tape, it would then create one containing the
composed work, it would the be fed to a Merganthaler VIP, and the
output device would run.

The terminal who did all that as it happens ran its programming via an
Intel C8008-1 processor. The PDP-8 was a PDP-8E.

--------------

Dave don't do that, don't do that.... **Sounds of an exploding
something are heard and suddenly big blue clouds are surrounding the
offices.** The voice you heard was the Doctor trying to convince you
to not try and run some example of hardware that he handed you. He
himself took off for his TARDIS to try and prevent a huge tear in Time
itself. He was marginally successful.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."