overwhelmed with paper tapes - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 Aug 2001

Bill said:
...
  Anybody out there have a paper tape reader, and would
be willing to
 run these through and produce some kind of binary file that would be
 usable with various software emulators (or useful to someone who
 wanted to punch their own copies of these tapes)?  I dont want them
 to languish around in my garage when someone somewhere could be putting
 them to use.
 Bill 
  I can also read paper tapes into my PC. The files would be
raw dumps of the tapes, handy for punching copies. One
of these days I'm going to sit down and write a converter
that detects the file format and extracts the data, but I'm
not there yet.
 My setup is a DATA I/O paper tape reader (fairly new compared
to most paper tape readers), a DATA I/O Series 22 PROM Programmer,
and the PC. Normally, using the paper tape reader with the 
prom programmer you have to tell the programmer what format the
tape is in before it can read it into memory. I made a special
'Y' cable so that the paper tape reader can get the 24 volts
it needs from the prom programmer, but the serial lines from
reader goto the PC.
 If the tape is fan folded (and it sounds like it is) I like
to stretch it out down the hallway making sure it flat before
it zips through the reader, just in case....
 Let me know if I can help.
 --Doug
=========================================
Doug Coward                
@ home in Poulsbo, WA

Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
=========================================