Fanuc PPR - Paper Tape Punch, Printer and Reader : Not quite working

[Martin Bishop]

A nicely made yellow box with a rather poor manual - both lost in translation and limited in scope.

Working on setting one to work, but can't get anything out of the serial port.  In drives the punch, and the punched data verifies (based on a QL).  In also drives the printer, although somewhat garbled, perhaps due to BCD coding or perhaps due to invalid parity (which is configured as no check).  The reader 'reads' tape both in response to X/ON over RS232 and in response to front panel keys.  However, nothing is emitted onto 232.  The D25 - D-9 transition has all the RTS/CTS and DSR/DTR/DCD lines knitted appropriately and indicating 'correctly' on blinkenlites.  Interestingly, on long test tapes the reader does not fall off the end but stops, repeatably after ~49" which is remarkably close to 512 octets.  Finally, the CNC termination octets : % (ASCII) and 0x80 (BCD : RS-244) don't seem to impress the reader - nothing changes.

Specific queries:
- Are there any magic control codes or handshaking rituals to coax data out of the reader
- Is the PPR to CNC Controller interface protocol manual available as pdf
- Where can I find drawings for the PPR's electronics, most importantly the main board (with its 8031)
- Suggestions on how to proceed with setting to work / fault diagnosis
- Has anyone house trained one of these to read PDP-11 absolute binary tapes, their target market was G code (text)

Martin