Vintage> I have some paper tapes that I'm trying to read and I have Vintage> good reason to believe they are from a Wang machine of some Vintage> type. Vintage> They seem to hold some sort of document. The writing on the Vintage> tape indicates a section number and "pages". Vintage> The tape is 8-level. The 8th bit seems to be used as some Vintage> sort of end-of-line or end-of-record marker. The 7th bit Vintage> seems to be parity. So the actual symbol codes are likely Vintage> 6-bit. I don't have the specific code at hand or in my memory, but that sounds a lot like a common Flexowriter code. 8th bit by itself for carriage return fits, as does parity in bit 7. paul

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: http://www.thebattles.net/wang/docs/basic-reference.pdf Page 147 and the next few pages (not of the PDF, but instead page 147 of the original manual numbering) talks about using the DATALOAD command to read paper tapes. It has some information that might be useful.

Sallam Wrote: The first devices that Wang Laboratories made that utilized punched paper tape were numerical control (NC) units for vertical machining centers, such as drills, mills, etc The control units read EIA-standard punched tape (not ASCII). The EIA code is an 8-level code. The 8th bit marks "End of Block". One bit (either 6 or 7, I can't remember) indicated upper or lower case. Another bit (again either 6 or 7) encoded odd parity. Five bits were used to encode the character set, bits 1 through 5. Each numerical control command consisted of codes designated by a single letter, followed by a numeric argument. For example, to move the table to X,Y coordinates of 1.075 and -0.800 inches, the command might be: G01X+1.075Y-0.8 EOB There were various G codes for functions such as moving the table, changing spindle speed, lowering and raising the drill or cutter, pausing for operator intervention, etc. As control units became more capable, other G codes were added for doing things like autmatically machining arcs, performing threading operations, automatic tool changing, etc. At the time (Wang got in the NC business in the late 1950's, mainly due to contract work for Warner Swasey, a large metalworking machine manufacturer), the most common device for preparing punched tape programs for numerical control units was the Friden Flexowriter. The Flexowriter line had many different models, including units that punched custom codes (for early computer consoles on the likes MINIAC, LGP-20/21, early MONROBOT etc.), EIA, and Baudot (5-level tape). The original Flexowriter design wasn't capable of ASCII. The EIA-code Flexowriter is the most common. To diversify business in the early '60's, Wang took a contract to build a typesetting machine, called Linasec. This machine was driven by punched tape. These machines were used at newspaper publishers for setting the type for the printing of the newspaper pages. I have no information on the structure of the data encoded on the punched tape for submittal to these machines, but it could be that you have a tape that was prepared for a Linasec, in which case, it's quite a rarity. The whole story of Linasec is worthy of an article in itself, but suffice it to say that due to the outcome of the Linasec project, Wang Labs found it necessary to develop another primary product base, which spawned the beginning of the calculator business. Wang also used punched tape units in their calculator line. Peripheral devices were available for Wang's LOCI-2 calculator that allowed the machine to read and punch tape, as well as for many other later Wang calculators. In the calculator arena, all of the devices responded to the ASCII code. As the calculator business became far too competitive, Wang entered the word processing marketplace, with the 1200-series word processor. These machines were based on the "CPU" design of the 700 and 600-series calculators, but with different microcode to perform basic word-processing applications. These machines utilized a modified IBM selectric typewriter for input/output, but also had a separate punched paper tape reader/punch. My memory fails as to whether EIA or ASCII was used on the 1200-series. Later Wang word processing systems changed over to using magnetic tape(audio cassette form factor with specialized tape formulations for storing digital data) for storing documents. It could be that the tape you have is for a 1200-series word processor -- again, a rather rare find. The 1200-series didn't last very long, as it was sabotaged by IBM, which failed to include an important spring in the Selectrics provided to Wang, which made the machines type unreliably. With all that said (I hope the story is interesting), my guess is that you have an EIA encoded tape, because of the single punch in the 8th bit, which was indicative of the EIA code. If it isn't EIA, then it might be a custom variation of the EIA code specifically for the Linasec or 1200-series machine, in which case, using EIA as a base may help in determining what the tape says. Typesetting and word-processing, by their nature (with various fonts and sizes, type fonts, justification modes, etc.), may have required extending or changing the encoding on the tape, or developing a completely new type of code to represent the various typesetting functions in a form most easily digested by the relatively simple electronics (all discrete diode-transistor logic) that Linasec was built from. Given the notation of "pages", it's not likely to be a numerical control tape. I'm curious, what led you to the conclusion that the tape was prepared or generated for/on Wang equipment? Best to all, Rick Bensene The Old Calcualtor Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com Beavercreek, Oregon