You recall correctly; I ran a 101 with my Commodore PET for several years and it did indeed use 1" 8 channel paper tape for vertical form control. Side note: because of its size and noise it was in the basement, connected to the PET in the upstairs office with a ~40 foot ribbon cable, contrary to official length limits.
m On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 1:46 PM Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk < [email protected]> wrote: > IIRC the Centronics 101 printers did this. It was for vertical spacing > - you could put different loops in for different form lengths. > > I used to service them (mostly replacing heads) but never operated :-) > > cheers, > > Nigel > > > > On 2023-06-08 13:18, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 6:01 PM Paul Koning<[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> I wonder if mylar tape for punching could be found, or made. That was > >> seen occasionally, for applications where a tape needed to be read many > >> times. An OS binary tape might want that. I also remember seeing it > on a > >> machine in my father's lab, where it contained correction factors for a > >> piece of precision machinery. > >> > > I've seen mylar tape used in a tiny loop where it controlled the > movements > > of a printer platen. I don't recall now whether it was used for > horizontal > > or vertical space - my recollection was the latter but it was a long time > > ago. > > > > I don't know why it wasn't controlled by ASCII - a good bit of the > > character set is dedicated to print head control. I think a different > tape > > had to be installed to match the program that was being run. The machine > > was used for accountancy in about 1975, It was a bit like a large LA120 > > (but included the calculating part) and made by the french Logabax > company. > > > > I worked in a manufacturing plant around 1985 where the (new) > > pick-and-place machine was controlled by a paper tape. The tape was > punched > > on an ASR33 or similar. It seemed like an obsolete solution even though > > only just installed. I bought a very nice surplus Facit tape punch from a > > classified ad in Wireless World, built a serial to parallel interface and > > allowed the machine programmer to create the source on a word processor > > (which was our manufactured product) instead. > > -- > Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU > Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! > Skype: TILBURY2591 > >
