On 05/12/2020 10:36 PM, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote:
Following up on the results of my searching around. The FANUC A860 reader
with A20B controller (the normal set up) has a 50 pin output port. There
is a device one can buy that receives the signal from the FANUC's 50-pin
port and converts to into 25-pin RS232. The device is called a behind the
tape reader or BTR. There are models of BTR made for FANUC. I found the
Memex MX1000 and MX1100, Sanyo RLC174 and DOSTEK 440A. I am sure there are
more.
20+ years ago, I resurrected an Allen-Bradley 7320 CNC
controller. I didn't want to deal with paper tapes, and had
to modify the program a bit, anyway, and had no punch. So,
I built my own BTR. The interface on this one was a 12 V
logic standard, but quite simple. 8 data bits and a strobe
came out, and there was an input to advance to the next
character. (These old CNC controls had bi-directional
readers, and the control could move forward and backwards on
the tape. But, I didn't need the reverse feature.)
It was a pretty simple thing to set up and connect through
the computer's parallel port.
Jon
