25 Mar
2006
25 Mar
'06
1:07 p.m.
"Barry Watzman" <Watzman at neo.rr.com> wrote:
All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use
tilt/rotate code. You
tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, then
whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano would
love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code will
ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to solenoids
in the mechanism.
I believe that one of Don Lancaster's logic cookbooks shows how to
convert ASCII to tilt/rotate codes. Either that or some mid-late-70's
Radio Electronics article that also tells how to use surplus core
memory...
The one Selectric that I saw converted just used a bunch of solenoids
to whack the keys on a plain old keyboard.
Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember
it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap)
in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not
a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines
especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever
saw.
Tim.