[cctalk] Re: Is there a more modern replacement for paper tape punch/reader

For me, back in the day on my Coco, it would have been a CCR like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/336028139332 There's really no magic, it's an audio cassette recorder with an extra input to start/stop the motor. You may find tapes to be a little unreliable these days -- the cassettes themselves can break down, belts inside the player can break, and there was about a decade where rollers were used that have now turned into tar-like goo. If you want to know how to interface an audio tape, then you can look at some other vintage computer projects and adapt them: * Craig's SBC-85 tape board: https://bitsofthegoldenage.org/documentation/sbc-85-cassette-tape-interface… (this one makes use of the SI/SO on the 8085, so maybe not so easily generalized to other CPUs, unless you add your own UART) * Norberto's H8 serial/cassette board: https://koyado.com/heathkit/New-H8-Website/h8-z5-4-serial-console-cassette-… (this one comes with a UART) You can also find schematics for computers that used a tape, such as the TRS-80 Coco. There's lots of old 8-bit computers that used tapes. Even the original IBM PC had a tape interface built in (though it was rarely used). You will have a bit of work, in both software and hardware, to adapt one of these existing designs. For a terminal, I typically use some variation of this: https://maccasoft.com/en/electronics/vga-serial-terminal/ Scott On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 6:19 PM ben via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: