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#imlac

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neutronwrangler<p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://infosec.exchange/@HoffmanLabs" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>HoffmanLabs</span></a></span></p><p>At Decca Navigator we had a high speed paper tape reader, it was impossible to spool the output in real (reel?) time so we had to catch it in dustbins and spool it by hand later (1979)</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/mergenthaler" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mergenthaler</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/imlac" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>imlac</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/linotron" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>linotron</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/retrocomputers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputers</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/pds4" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>pds4</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.org.uk/tags/spacewar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>spacewar</span></a></p>
Stephen Hoffman<p>Had an IMLAC PDS-4 with a troublesome paper tape punch, and the take-up reel drive failed.</p><p>Needed to use that failed punch to load a font into a Mergenthaler Linotron phototypesetter.</p><p>(That project also involved writing a translation tool on the Imlac to get the data into the format (reverse TTL, IIRC) expected by the Linotron, but that’s another discussion. As is the spectacular Spacewar game on the IMLAC vector display.)</p><p>In the stupid-but-works category, chucking the paper tape punch take-up reel extracted from the punch into a variable-speed electric drill did work, and did get the font tape punched and over to the Linotron.</p><p>1970s- and 1980s-era IT hardware was easier to fix (where you could get or hack the parts), though that tech failed far more often than 2020s-era tech.</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Mergenthaler" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Mergenthaler</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/IMLAC" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>IMLAC</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/linotron" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>linotron</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/retrocomputers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputers</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputing</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/RetroComputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RetroComputing</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/PDS4" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>PDS4</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/spacewar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>spacewar</span></a></p>
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