Re: Paper tape readers for micros. (Re: I feel 31337!111!!)

[SynABit@kc.invalid (Dennis Doms)]

In article <980213560.3a6cdf388d03f@webmail.cotse.com>,
<penman-no-spam@cotse.com> wrote:

>The Cauzan strip reader was also adopted by InCider, I believe--
>at least I recall seeing the strips in there.  There was also a
>program that went with the reader that would allow you to print
>out a program on a DMP, with the idea that you could photocopy
>and distribute your programs.  I just got a reader from a
>friend a couple of years ago, but I've never hooked it up to
>see if it worked.  I seem to recall that it was fairly
>unwieldy, tho a heck of a lot better than typing in code from
>the magazines for those of us who tend to be fumble-fingered.  :)
>
>Penman

I played with one years ago (I still have it somewhere). The problem
was in the production of strips. I didn't have much luck with making
reliable ones on  the DMP. The other option was an Apple Laserwriter,
which of course was a luxury item in those days. It worked well in
reading the high-resolution ones (magazines, "stripware", etc.).

A lot of their I/O was hardcoded, which didn't help. For example, the
Apple II drivers wrote directly to the Super Serial Card chip (6522?)
rather than sending through the firmware. (Same problem with printer
interfaces, if I recall.)

If you want something to be widely adopted, it needs to be affordable
(including enough flexibility to not require massive new purchases to
support). Cauzin's implementation failed on several counts.

However, the other interesting thing is that it worked on (at least
some configurations of) Macs, PCs, and Apple IIs. You could read an
Applesoft program into a PC, though if you "wrote" the tokenized form
it would be read in that way on the PC.

 --
Dennis Doms  SynABit@kc.invalid
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