On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros

As said before, one can easily get some of the small (8 pin dip) micros to do magic things, but sometimes (as mentioned) it is a bit more trouble than it is worth. Many of us (me!) have stuff in their junk boxes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclassic part archive that will do the task quite easily. In my case, I obtained a nice Facit 4070 paper tape punch and made up a simple interface adapter (it fit inside one of those 2x DB-25 scramble boxes) to make it function using a PeeCee parallel port. Now if I desire to punch a paper tape, all I do is a simple copy to the printer port and ...buzzzz... out comes the tape. Thankfully the Facit 4070 had some power available on its DB-25, but I needed to play around with all the levels (it used 6 volt levels). In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on changing the strobes to conform. I suppose I could have used an 8 pin ATMEL chip, but why bother. Sometimes the "classic" solution is MUCH easier.