Hi, 

I thought the OP-80A could read both 5-Level and 8-Level paper tapes? 

I wish somebody here in the USA made OP-80A kits … the guy in the UK quit, but won’t publish his Gerber files. 

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C U L8r,  °|°  Walt Perko  °|°        "Kids ... teach them the good stuff, and they still learn the bad stuff on their own."

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Experiments to learn how to use various Electronic Components, Structured Computer Programming, Phonemes for Speech &Song in any language, and Art.

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            Sent from the Cyber7

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of John Lawson via GreenKeys
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2026 8:33 AM
To: Greenkeys <[email protected]>
Subject: [GreenKeys] Wheatstone Morse

I rescued a couple of TTY Wheatsone punches in their lovely wooden cases, and a Boehme reader, from the old Mare Island Naval facility. The machinery has all gone to good homes where it will be displayed.

However, there were also many large reels of punched tape.  I’m currently midway thru fabricating a photoelectric reader head, and I’ll program an Ardiuno or Raspbery Pi to read them.

It’s a little tricky because the decoder must discern four states: ‘ one sprocket only’(inter character gap), ‘two sprockets only’ (inter word gap), ‘sprocket plus both holes’ (a DIT), or ‘sprocket plus one hole, then sprocket plus a second hole’ (displaced by one sprocket hole in time; a DAH).

The original System, all mechanical, was said to have been able to work at up to 500 WPM…       dang……

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing what is on these old tapes.  Its not particularly difficult to read them visually, just tedious and I’m lazy.

HIHI

Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatstone_system

Cheers

John KB6SCO
Casrson City