PDP-8: (and others) anyone tried NVRAM simulation of hard drives?

From: Bob Shannon <bshannon_at_tiac.net>
Date: Sat Feb 1 08:28:00 2003

Emulate the tape reader.

Vintage paper tapes are usually made from quite low quality paper and
degrade with use. Mylar tapes
are much better, but can still be dammaged (if you try).

So unless you also have a punch to dumplicate your tapes, then its
really much better to transfer the tapes
into some modern digital format.

If your PDP-8 has a tape reader interface, its usually trival to build a
paper tape reader emulator and connect
it to your machine.

Will Jennings wrote:

> I think Ethan's points are excellent; in fact, the main reason I had
> suggest an SSD in the first place was because the real drives used
> with the 8/i were not very large (by modern standards). I'd like to
> add that a major reason for my desire for such a beast is the fact
> that I have absolutely no peripherals for my 8/i, nor do I have the
> required boards to control them if I did have them. Heck, I don't even
> currently have a complete machine, but I'm working on it. I'll
> hopefully soon have a list of needed boards I can post to the list...
> Anyone have any REAL manuals for the thing that they'd part with? Or a
> paper tape reader? Please? *begs*
>
> Will J
Received on Sat Feb 01 2003 - 08:28:00 GMT