[GreenKeys] WBR70

[Doug Alderdice]

At 09:53 AM 10/2/2010 -0500, David Christ wrote:
>Speaking of IBM chain printers, we're back to punch tape again. Every form 
>and every label stock had its own tab, form feed and top of form set 
>up.  These were in the form of a loop of punched tape.  I think they were 
>8 level.  Every line printed advanced the tape one position.  Carriage 
>control characters in the print stream triggered a jump to the matching 
>spot on the tape with corresponding paper movement.

Oh my, do I remember those!  In high school (1979-1982) we had a System/360 
with a 1401 chain printer and the carriage control tapes would wear out 
periodically.  It was always the job of a junior or senior comp sci student 
to make up a new tape and install it, and I did it a number of times.  The 
tapes were blank and had to be punched with an official IBM punch that 
looked like it was from the 50s, and probably was originally designed for 
the punch card data processing machines, and then you cut it to the 
specified length and glued the ends together with (I think) rubber 
cement.  The tapes were mylar or some tough material like that.

>Memories, memories.

Indeed.

>I wonder what the median age is on this list.

Probably scarily (is that a word?) high...  Closer to 50 than 40 here... ugh.

73,

Doug, KA2WFT