[GreenKeys] Digitronics Dial-o-verter in Transatlantic Teleteypsetter Link

[Randy and Sherry Guttery]

On 7/9/2012 2:08 AM, David I. Emery wrote:
> Those of us of what for women is called a "certain age" 
> (aka old phartes) may remember this well, as there was an 
> era in the development of computers when minicomputers 
> used and read paper or later mylar tape to load programs 
> and data.
Paper tape was used before "mini-computers"...   Autonetics 
used paper tape to load several of their early "dual 
technology" computers (i.e. part digital part analog) - esp. 
ones used for navigation.
> Needless to say producing all that punched tape 
> efficiently required high speed punches, some of which 
> certainly could go much faster than even 100 rows a 
> second. Relying on 10 character a second Teletype gear to 
> punch the quantities and lengths of tapes involved would 
> have taken absolutely forever... And myriads and myriads 
> (in the minicomputer world especially) of high speed 
> photoelectric readers... to read all those tapes in finite 
> time. 
In the late  50's through mid 80's - the U.S. Navy used 
Freiden readers / punches.  They read mylar master tapes 
(mechanically, not photo) - and punched a paper "use copy" 
from that. The tape readers that actually "loaded" the 
computers were optical - and moved tape at several hundred 
feet per minute.

No "reels" were used on the paper tape - as it was 
"fan-folded".

BTW - the "print out" was by modified IBM Selectric - Which 
on the SINS computers could only print  + - 0-9, space and 
return. The keyboard was not read in that instance.

best regards...

-- 
randy guttery

A Tender Tale - a page dedicated to those Ships and Crews
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