RC2014 and Heathkit H8 Vintage/Retro Punched Paper Tape using a FANUC PPR (Portable Punch Reader)

My second video on using punched paper tape with vintage computers. I found a FANUC PPR (Portable Punch Reader) on eBay. I repaired it. Then I modified my RC2014 using a custom serial board and a custom BASIC interpreter so that I could load and save BASIC programs to punched paper tape. I also augmented BASIC so I can use the PPR's printer to print program listings. Then I connected this to my Heathkit H8 and used Extended Benton Harbor BASIC to read and write BASIC programs to tape. Finally, I printed over a hundred feet of tape (first paper, then mylar) from my Laptop containing the binary for Benton Harbor BASIC and loaded that into the H8, demonstrating how to load a large binary program. Tape went all over the flow, it was quite a mess, but eventually I loaded over the 100+ foot tape. The FANUC PPR is a great way to experiment with paper tape on Vintage or Retro computers as it implements everything you need -- paper tape punch, paper tape reader, and even a printer -- and it implements is using a standard RS232 Interface that is very easy to use with most older computers. For more vintage computing projects, see www.smbaker.com/

[@Brian_Of_Melbourne]

A tip I was taught as a youngster was this. Before connecting the ground clip of a 'scope probe use the tip of the probe to look at the thing you are about to connect the ground clip to. What you should see is almost nothing. Meaning that the ground of the 'scope and your potential ground in the Unit Under Test. Clearly this relies on the UUT being turned on at this point.

[@fredrikbergquist5734]

When I had the tape punch I printed characters on the beginning of the tape, the holes having a 7x5 character pattern. It was good to print the name of the file automatically instead of writing with a pen on the tape.

[@smbakeryt]

After printing the mylar tape with Benton Harbor Basic on it, my seven year old spotted it and immediately asked for a shiny mylar tape with her name punched on it. Fortunately there was a nice 8-bit dot matrix font on the web... :)

[@derekchristenson5711]

What an interesting (and bulky!) peripheral! I've thought about buying a paper punch / read at some point, but I can't help but feel that I'd probably have fun for a short time, then just get frustrated with failed loads and such. The retro feel is undeniable, in any case. And, I do like seeing them in action. Thanks for showing it. 🙂

[@Brian_Of_Melbourne]

I was shocked, shocked I say, that you cut the tape with scissors. I was expecting you to use the pointy bit very close to where the punching is taking place. This gives the front of the tape a convex V shape and the end of the tape a concave V. This is DEFINITELY the right thing to do with teletypes like a the ASR33.

[@DevilsHandyman]

I never enjoyed the use of paper tape but did spend far too much time doing punch cards for projects. It is amazing the noise that thing makes even just reading the tape.

[@mikeenkelis8522]

As a FYI the printer on this takes standard 2.75” adding machine paper perfectly. As a fellow PPR owner I just wanted to pass along this information.

[@marc6340]

I have 4 Hero 1 robots and always drooled over the H8 in the HealthKit catalogs! Always thought it would be awesome to have it for programming! When I was in high school, we used paper cards for our programming. I always loved those, because the process was so "hands on". Great video!

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Ow it's so lovely to see this old tech working, thanks for your video, my first ever BASIC program with written using a combo Teletype paper tape reader writer in an annexed building of what is now Bournemouth University.

[@SB-qm5wg]

That was cool watching it decode paper and go back to digital. I've never seen that before

[@TheSillyshyguy]

Great video

[@JanEringa8k]

I have a very old and fuzzy memory that there were paper tape "spooler" products that would allow a paper tape to be taken up on a second reel. Maybe it would be possible to 3D print something that could fulfil the same purpose?

[@Chriva]

*bubble* *bubble* :D Such a weird technology :)

[@AlexanderWeurding]

Wow! Great vid, thanks for sharing!

[@gort59]

Great work and interesting video!

[@trilbyrollers]

Great video - really enjoyed this one!

[@dhardingham]

Brilliant!

[@douro20]

These things were made in Luxembourg of all places. Fanuc made the reader but I believe the punch was actually made by another company. They hold their value extremely well; if you can find them they are often over 1000 USD.

[@gorak9000]

I can't see there being a lot of demand - CNC has moved past tape years ago - most machines have a USB floppy emulator in them now at minimum, or if the machine is too old for floppies, or didn't have a floppy originally, they use drip feeding over serial now. But the CNC industry still can't get over talking about machine memory capacity in "Meters of tape" which boggles the mind!

[@douro20]

@@gorak9000 Fanuc probably is to blame for that. I believe they still use that metric to gauge the size of a program regardless of the storage medium.

[@gorak9000]

@@douro20 It's not just Fanuc though, it's the whole industry that uses that metric. I'm not sure if that continues on to new machines today, or if they actually switched to just capacity (aka MB or hopefully GB seeing as all controls these days are PC based at heart - but knowing how CNC industry works, it's probably still stupidly small, and you pay a fortune to "upgrade" the capacity - aka disable a software restriction). I'm pretty sure if you told a new machine operator the memory capacity in meters of tape, you'd get a confused look back.

[@tubeDude48]

I don't know if this was a miss-step, but the Heathkit Punch could also read. I saw it, (first hand), play back a piece of Bach!

[@smbakeryt]

yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it was write-only; I probably could have been a bit clearer on that. Given that readers are relatively straightforward to DIY (there's a nice-looking opensource one I'm tempted to build), most of my focus has been on punching so that's what I've mostly been talking about.

[@tubeDude48]

@@smbakeryt - I'm sending you a link to my site. Under Heathkit, you will see a KZbin demo of the H-11 playing Bach!

[@vanhetgoor]

It is easy to find out how to pronounce "fanuc!" You go and stand in the wild somewhere, keep fresh raw chicken meat in your hand and start with "fannook", "fannuck", "fanook", try all kind af accents as well, when it responses you found the right way to say it. Or it is attracted to the chicken parts, then it is a guess. Oh they are co cunning! Cunning and brave!

[@retrotechandelectronics]

I have a DSI punch/reader with an RS232 interface not being used I might be willing to offload...

[@smbakeryt]

Interesting, just watched a few videos on the DSI -- that thing looks pretty big compared to the PPR. It also seems to maintain the tradition of spewing tape all over the floor (If I ever meet a vintage CNC guy, I'll have to ask him whether they just didn't mind tape spewing all over the floor!)

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Maybe exposed 35mm film might be the way to go not sure.

[@gorak9000]

Instead of paper tape? Pretty sure the tape needs to have the smaller timing holes pre-punched into it to even load it into the machine, so film isn't going to work