[Simh] Various

[Timothe Litt]

On 13-Feb-20 19:21, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2020-02-13 17:42, Clem Cole wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 11:38 AM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com
>> <mailto:clemc at ccc.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     I think I saw a card read/punch only once on a PDP-6 IIRC, but it
>>     might have been a KA10.   I don't think I ever saw one on a PDP-8/11
>>     or Vaxen.
>>
>> The more I think about it, there must have been one or two in the
>> mill or the machine room in MRO, but I just can not picture them.
>
> As far as I know, there was no punch for the PDP-8 or PDP-11. However,
> there were readers.
>
> And the PDP-11 reader controller sat on the Unibus, so it would not be
> hard to get it working on a VAX either. If that was officially
> supported or not I don't know, though.
>
> There were a bunch of PDP-11 Unibus peripherals that was never
> supported on a VAX. DECtape comes to mind, as well as RK05.
>
>   Johnny
>

See my previous note.

The punches you mention do exist, as do others (Not particularly common
or popular):

  * PDP-11: CP11-UP Punch interface for Univac 1710 Card RDR/PUNCH
  * PDP-8: CP08-(N,P) (CSS) Data Products Speedpunch 120 100 CPM Punch
    and controller

Card readers were sold and supported on all systems thru VAX.

Someone wrote a DECtape driver for VAX - I think Stan R., though it
wasn't supported.  DECtape controllers are odd devices - the TD10 is
reasonably smart, but the others put realtime constraints on the drivers
that could be hard to meet.  Anyhow, by the time the VAX came out, TU58
and Floppies were cheaper and denser media.

There was also an unsupported DECtape driver for TOPS-20.

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