--- Glen Slick <glenslick_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> If you build one with discrete sensors, is it easy to find ones that
> are narrow enough to stack side to side with the correct spacing?
There was an article in Byte magazine in the late 1970s to early 1980s
about constructing your own optical reader. ISTR the author just
glued some standard photo transistors in a line and buffered them,
before running them to a parallel port on whatever his target
system was. There was a sensor under the sprocket hole that acted
as a clock - it was turned 180 degrees from the other phototransistors
so as to trigger slightly later than the data bits (due to the
geometry of the silicon under the lens). You just fed the leader
through, set up the receiving machine, then pulled the tape through
by hand with a desk lamp sitting over the reader.
Lo-tech but it looked effective.
-ethan
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Received on Tue Nov 26 2002 - 13:15:00 GMT