Restoring Old Paper Tape

[Charles Anthony]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:48 PM, John Robertson <jrr at flippers.com> wrote:

>
>> Would it not be simpler to make an optical reader to handle  this job?
> You need a light source and the correct number of opto transistors to read
> the light from each hole. There is an index built into the tape so that is
> easy to set.
>
> Something like this:
>
> http://hackaday.com/2014/05/02/reading-paper-tapes-from-scratch/
>
> Of course my assumption above is based on tape that is still complete. If
> it has holes or can't be pulled then, yes, photographing and visually
> reading the dot patterns may be necessary, but that sounds rather
> impractical if there are more than a couple of tapes to transcribe.


This is the approach I would use, based on my skill set. I have mad s/w
skillz, but building something more complicated than Legos is just beyond
me.  Also, given the described condition of the tapes, this is the approach
least likely (it seems to me) to make things worse. YMMV.

-- Charles