Hi Jon!
> think the Bendix G-15 had cassettes for the 5-level tape > they used. Aha, interesting! Did a short search, but have not been able to find a picture of a casette. Just a pile of paper tape instead ;-) https://images.app.goo.gl/HYqkpYHJUxZeGfiA8 > of mylar tape instead of paper. OS boot tapes might be punched > on that. Yes, for heavy use (and e.g. humid environments), the mil guys obviously used Mylar or heavily oiled tape. Although not experrienced myself, I was told that the Mylar tape cuts through the guiding pins of the readers over time. And yes, it also may easily cut one's fingers ;-) > much like plain paper tape, and simple mylar alone. The latter often > comes metallized on one side, and is glossy. Yes, that is the one within the casette and the aluminum as you expect is for optical reading (Most plastics including Mylar are quite transparent for IR light and in the old days, when thungsten bulbs where used, the IR part of the light was the major part contributing to the response of the photodiodes! > input medium for the university mainframe computer (Electrologica X8), > they used optical readers rated at 2000 characters per second. Wow - that is indeed pretty fast!!! My FACIT is 1200cps maximum and stopping "on character" as it is called is VERY hard at that speed. But buffering helps here and in case of the 920M, the casette is used for, there was no buffering. So software needs to be read in one run. Best wishes, Erik. ''~`` ( o o ) +--------------------------.oooO--(_)--Oooo.-------------------------+ | Dr. Erik Baigar Inertial Navigation & | | Salzstrasse 1 .oooO Vintage Computer | | D87616 Marktoberdorf ( ) Oooo. Hobbyist / Physicist | | [email protected] +------\ (----( )---------------------------+ | www.baigar.de | \_) ) / +----------------------+ (_/
