I just happened to enter the scene at the tail end of the glorious times of mini/mainframe computers, mechanical teletypes, punched cards and tapes, 300 baud modems, 8 inch floppy drives. The micro-processors were just on the verge of taking over everything. Those were Motorola 6809s we were using in the description above after all.
However I am old enough to actually want to get my hands on a paper tape punch and perhaps a high speed optical reader to load up my Propellers:)
You can build your own optical paper tape reader fairly easily, but a punch would be a bit more complicated. I might be able to get you a model 33 or 43 teletype, possibly with a punch. I still see the odd one in the surplus stores. Shipping would probably be more than the price of the teletype though.
ihmech, the first computer I ever saw was a Hewlett Packard 2100A minicomputer at my Dad's physics lab. It had binary button data entry, a teletype machine, and 4k by 16 bits of core memory. It had a feature called "power fail auto restart" which would detect that the power was failing by an interrupt generated by a voltage divider in the power supply, and you could have the interrupt save the CPU state to the core memory. This meant you could walk up to it at any time and PULL THE PLUG (it actually used a cylindrical key for the power switch), without warning, and leave it sitting there for a year and if you came back and turned it on it would instantly pick up running right where it left off as if nothing had happened.
Oh, and if it ever crashed HP would send out a technician who would figure out what was wrong with it and fixed it. Too bad it cost almost $40,000 in 1974.
You are bringing back fond memories and making me feel old at the same time. That was the second model of computer I serviced. They sent me for training in Palo Alto and gave us a tour of the plant the first morning. While we were looking at the 21MX that was being developed Mr. Packard came along and said a few words. Then he picked up the empty 21MX chassis, twisted it in his hands, and told the engineer "That will never do| We build solid reliable equipment here".
I still find myself day dreaming about that punch tape reader/writer. I'm sure you can still get the tape as I bet there are CNC machines around still using it. I was thinking about cheating and printing dots on tape instead of punching holes. Or we are just going to have to get a laser to blow the holes through:)
Having an actual teletype (hooked up to a Prop of course) would be just ultimate. Sipping would be a killer, they must weigh some.
I still find myself day dreaming about that punch tape reader/writer. I'm sure you can still get the tape as I bet there are CNC machines around still using it. I was thinking about cheating and printing dots on tape instead of punching holes. Or we are just going to have to get a laser to blow the holes through:)
Having an actual teletype (hooked up to a Prop of course) would be just ultimate. Sipping would be a killer, they must weigh some.
Model 33 or 43 (i'm guessing 33) I will keep my eyes open and find out how much it costs and weighs. Where do you live?
Make sure it's a ASR-33. The KSR-33 lacks the Punch/Reader. I threw out a perfectly working unit 15 years ago, thinking, "what am I going to do with this?", now that we have real printers. Almost broke my back lifting it into the dumpster. Luckily I still have a GNT 4601 tabletop Punch/Reader that I acquired back in 1988 with about 10 hours of total use. The tantalums blew when I tried to power it up last year. It's on the bench right now getting new caps.
Those REM lines used to drive me crazy when I did not know what they were for. I also thought they were random... no they were not ! . The ZX81 hat a "LET" keycode
Some games where quite clever and did not let you see the "code" in those lines...
I came late to the game because my first computer (1985) was a brazilian TK-85 with 16 KB RAM (a ZX-81 clone) without ULA, the brazilians had replaced it with discrete logic !
On topic: My first machine code experience was on a LabVolt 6502 trainer.
For input, it had just a hex keypad, and for display was 6 7segment displays. 4 for address, and 2 for data.
Comments
You can build your own optical paper tape reader fairly easily, but a punch would be a bit more complicated. I might be able to get you a model 33 or 43 teletype, possibly with a punch. I still see the odd one in the surplus stores. Shipping would probably be more than the price of the teletype though.
I still find myself day dreaming about that punch tape reader/writer. I'm sure you can still get the tape as I bet there are CNC machines around still using it. I was thinking about cheating and printing dots on tape instead of punching holes. Or we are just going to have to get a laser to blow the holes through:)
Having an actual teletype (hooked up to a Prop of course) would be just ultimate. Sipping would be a killer, they must weigh some.
Jim
As I thought, one can still by tape and reader/punches. Can't believe they still make these things. http://www.gnt.co.uk/hardware.htm
Time to start sniffing around for one on the used market.
Off topic: Ale, do you read your PM's?
For input, it had just a hex keypad, and for display was 6 7segment displays. 4 for address, and 2 for data.