OP-80A SetUp & Run Micro Soft BASIC v1.0 ...

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Tim and I have documented the process so that even a 10-year old should have little problems setting up an OP-80A Paper Tape Reader System ... 

https://www.brainless.org/Altair/OP-80A-SetUp/

The ZOOM:  https://youtu.be/HRCWiDR4EgM

.

[Joseph Corda]

Tim and Walt.. 

Great job with Tim's paper tape reader project documentation  
It's too bad that the OP-80A PCB boards (or even the gerber files) are not available here in the US.  
Thanks for sharing!

Joe

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Altair 8800" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to Altair-8800...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Altair-8800/8ccde072-75fb-49d7-b3f2-3625b45a43fcn%40googlegroups.com.

[Tim Geuy]

The board if fairly simple and the schematic is in the manual so it could probably be replicated fairly easily. The challenge would be the sensor. When I ordered mine, Jerry told me he makes them to order by hand. That may take a little more work.

[Tim Geuy]

As an alternative, this reader, while not a vintage replica, may be an option.

https://www.e-basteln.de/computing/papertape/overview/

This one is designed to sit inline between your terminal and the computer and automatically switches between reader and terminal so you can use a single serial port and get the same experience as using a teletype without the ridiculous cost

https://github.com/dhansel/PaperTapeReader

Both designers have posted all of the design files including the gerbers.

If you're looking for a real challenge, I stumbled across this DIY punch

https://github.com/simonboak/Paper-Tape-Punch

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Did you look at the part number of the photo resistors used in your OP-80A?   

Both Mouser and Digikey sell tiny photo resistors that can easily be super glued together to make a sensor.  

That's all they are.  The light runs the photo resistor down to near zero.  

What would really be handy is to not just build a look alike OP-80A, but maybe improve the design a little ... maybe have it TTL Serial and Parallel output.  There's no real reason to keep a new version 100% exactly the same.  

.

[Joseph Corda]

Tim

Thanks for sharing the options

Joe

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Altair-8800/9abc3138-7562-4f90-9c2b-de3e76605728n%40googlegroups.com.