27 Jun
2025
27 Jun
'25
3:14 p.m.
My only recollection of the prepunched sprocket hole tapes was that we ( large newspaper)
got the tapes in a box of 12 reels. The reels were joined together, so the end of one reel
was joined to the start of the next reel. I do remember seeing boxes lying at the base of
Linotype machines. I think they were also at the base of teletypes that some of the
typists used to generate the feed to the Linos. This was in 1973 when i interned for a
summer. Sorry, but memory is fuzzy. I do remember that there were many pallets of the
stuff. The paper was had started phasing out the Linotype machines but they still had over
60 of them.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 27, 2025, at 10:20, David Wise via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
A machine that punches the sprocket hole can work with pre-punched tape for one or a few
cycles, but long-term it will punch an elongated hole and drift out of registration. CTI
warns about it in the manual for the 173A “Tape-Ard” I have. (By the way the 173A uses
the same Friden engine that IBM OEMed for the 1620’s 1624 punch.)
Some readers backspace but only as a side effect. For example the Remex stepper motor
based machines. In high speed mode they stop one space past the target then backspace.
Dave Wise
>> On Jun 27, 2025, at 9:34 AM, Tony Duell via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 5:09 PM Frank Leonhardt via cctalk
>> <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks - I wasn't sure. I've actually got a few Teletype 32 and 33s in
>> my shed but I'm too scared to turn them on after 40 years to check. When
>> I was coding they were earlier Creed models (mostly). It think one was
>> an Olivetti, which had style, and an ITT branded 444 that looked like it
>
> The Creed 444 scanned manual I have says 'ITT Creed' on it (and the
> address is given as Brighton, not Croydon). I think ITT owned Creed at
> that pont
>
> The Creed 444 can also backspace the punch (and will use unpunched tape).
>
>
>> was from the 21st Century (as I imagined imagined, incorrectly, what the
>> 21st would look like at the time time). I stopped using them even as a
>> printer when the FX-80 came out :-) (Alas, I only kept the Teletype
>> Corporation ones, which I kept to scavenge parts).
>>
>> I seem to recall backed up tape forming a loop rather than rewinding
>> onto the spool.
>
> Yes, the main use of this facility was to immediately correct a typo
> by backspacing the tape and overpunching the incorrect character with
> all holes. You didn't need to rewind the tape if you only have 1/10"
> of it to bother about.
>
> -tony