27 Jun
2025
27 Jun
'25
2:41 a.m.
On 24/06/2025 20:16, Wayne S wrote:
On Jun 24, 2025, at 12:10, Tony Duell
<ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
My experience is the same as Waynes - I've never seen a punch that
didn't punch the sprocket hole and I've never seen one that required
one. Perhaps it's an American thing (reminder: I'm in the UK, where
Paper Tape was king). This would have been everything Creed, Elliott and
later Teletype (e.g. ASR33) and probably a few I can't remember. I've
never even seen pre-punched tape.
I'm suspect some optical readers didn't require it as the tape was
advanced using a pinch roller until a non-null punch was received.
Regards, Frank.
On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 8:04 PM Wayne S via
cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Interesting.
All the ones i used, including some teletypes, needed pre-punched tape, ostensibly to
ensure proper alignment. We used to buy pallets of prepunched tape.
Sent from my iPhone
There’s really a disconnect on between reading
and punching paper tape.
For making blank tape that can be used in a punch, you can cut a roll of something down
to a proper width, but the paper has to be thicker than cashiers paper. The real trick is
that the paper has to be perforated in the middle before use. That’s how it’s “dragged”
thru the punch/reader. I haven’t seen anyone mention how to do that.
If you can manage to do that, then you could also oil the paper and use it on a punch.
Every paper tape punch (Teletype, Friden, DEC, Facit, Data
Dynamics...) I have punches the sprocket holes along with the data
holes. Some need a bit of help (pull the tape by hand) to get started
on a new roll of tape, but once it starts punching properly it will
continue to do so until the roll runs out.
-tony