[HECnet] punched tape

On Sat, 20 Apr 2013, Dave McGuire wrote: On 04/20/2013 12:14 PM, Brett Bump wrote: Oooold people. ;-) I was still in high school at that time. My introduction to a paper-tape device came about 4 years later (in college) when my physics prof and I put together a Heathkit H-11 (PDP-11/03 really) that had the nastiest paper-tape device ever created by man. I think we could get it to load maybe 1 time out of 20. We then got the 8 inch floppy drive functional and I think the paper-tape device was relagated to the trash heap. Ah, bet he's kickin' himself now! I'd easily drop $1K for one of those, and the few that have hit the market recently have gone for more than that. $1000.00? For this?: http://ns1758.ca/winch/heathkit0029.jpg In a heartbeat. It was a nightmare. lol Uh. I'm not looking for one to use for storage for my mail server or anything. ;) That would be amusing. I hope you have a lot of tape. ;) And the box containing the 11/03 wasn't much better. Except for the dust, our H-11 looked exactly like this one: http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/heath11.jpg Yup. They sucked. But they are very rare, and fairly historically important, as the only minicomputer (architecturally speaking) to be sold as a kit. (even though the CPU board itself was supplied assembled, unmodified, from DEC) And you haven't had joy in your life until you've put together and tried to type on that tinker-toy Heathkit terminal (clickity-klackity). Don't forget you can't delete characters by using backspace, you use rubout: http://www.thepcmuseum.net/comp_images/photo_HeathkitH89_02.JPG Yup, the H-9. Mine is the only one I know of that actually works. Interesting! I "DID" like that 8" drive however as it would format floppies. ;-) Yup. Those are almost as scarce as the H-10, unfortunately. I have the not-quite-as-scarce H17 (dual 5.25" hard-sectored floppy) on one of my H-8s. The DEC paper-tape drive on the other hand, worked like a dream. It is probably worth the $1k+ to get it: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~djg/htdocs/pc04/frontasmb.jpg Oh yes. And they go for a lot more than $1K. I myself have an HP optical (300CPS) paper tape reader with a homebrew Positive I/O Bus interface for the PDP-8/e. It works a treat. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA -- Cory Smelosky http://gewt.net/ Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments