8 Jun
2023
8 Jun
'23
5:18 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 6:01 PM Paul Koning <paulkoning(a)comcast.net> wrote:
I wonder if mylar tape for punching could be found, or
made. That was
seen occasionally, for applications where a tape needed to be read many
times. An OS binary tape might want that. I also remember seeing it on a
machine in my father's lab, where it contained correction factors for a
piece of precision machinery.
I've seen mylar tape used in a tiny loop where it controlled the movements
of a printer platen. I don't recall now whether it was used for horizontal
or vertical space - my recollection was the latter but it was a long time
ago.
I don't know why it wasn't controlled by ASCII - a good bit of the
character set is dedicated to print head control. I think a different tape
had to be installed to match the program that was being run. The machine
was used for accountancy in about 1975, It was a bit like a large LA120
(but included the calculating part) and made by the french Logabax company.
I worked in a manufacturing plant around 1985 where the (new)
pick-and-place machine was controlled by a paper tape. The tape was punched
on an ASR33 or similar. It seemed like an obsolete solution even though
only just installed. I bought a very nice surplus Facit tape punch from a
classified ad in Wireless World, built a serial to parallel interface and
allowed the machine programmer to create the source on a word processor
(which was our manufactured product) instead.