[Coco] Techrepublic Rocks !!!! Paper Tape

George Ramsower georgeramsower at gmail.com
Sun May 4 00:29:40 EDT 2008


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger Merchberger"
> Yes, I keep a box of 8" floppies & a few IBM 80-column cards on my desk 
> just to remind 'em how much of a "fogey" I really am. ;-) [2] The one 
> thing I never dealt with (outside the military and they wouldn't let me 
> keep any) was paper-tape - anyone have a sample (preferably punched) for 
> cost of postage? ;-)
>

 You reminded me of my FIRST printer for my FIRST coco. A 4K coco...

 Someone gave me a KSR teletype machine with a paper tape reader/writer. I 
modified it to do a LF on a CR so it would work with the coco RS-BASICK.
Damn that thing was noisy. I even managed to use the tape to write and read 
stuff to and from the coco. What fun!! By then, I had upgraded the coco to 
64K.
My wife made me go to the extreme of putting the machine in a hall closet, 
line the closet with blankets and keep the door shut so she wouldn't have to 
turn the TV up so loud to cover the noise.
Damn that thing was noisy. Did I mention that?
Damn that think was noisy.

Nope! The machine and tapes are gone.... many years ago, along with my:
 16mm movie camera and projector,
 the 45 RPM record duplicator,
 the record player that did 16,33,45 and 78 RPMs,
 the Heath H8
 and a host of other things I wish I had to sell now, including some 
automobiles.

 Ah....well, we toss some things and later regret it.

 I've NEVER tossed a coco. My first Grey case coco was stolen. They took 
just the coco and left the drives and all the other peripherals.
What a dummy! The other stuff was worth more than the coco. What did they 
know?

 Hmm... I"m thinking I still have some of the boards that went into that H8 
...I'll have to look around for them.

The H8 power supply is powering my darkroom enlarger now. I LOVE that power 
supply. Plenty of power and the transformer is a constant voltage 
transformer using a really BIG cap to keep it that way. Every now and again, 
when I turn it on, the thing oscillates and I have to power it down and turn 
it back on.
 Gene!
 Could that be a failing cap/condensor?


George





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