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Old 11th May 2021, 4:14 pm   #3
Mark1960
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,265
Default Re: MK14 computer with a OK-80a paper tape reader - what data required for the paper

I didn’t listen to the youtube video, or even really watch it as I find them to be mostly advertisements, broken up by youtube advertisements. Skipping through quite quickly, I didn’t notice him entering a bootloader on the MK14. This would probably take just as long to enter on the keypad as it would to enter the moonlander program from the keypad. I don’t think the cassette interface routine of the later version prom would be much use for this as it requires serial data.

A more useful paper tape input for the MK14 would use the keypad input routines of the MK14, with the papertape containing codes for the keypresses. As the MK14 keypad interface is a scanned matrix this would not be trivial in basic logic circuits, but quite possible to achieve. Using an arduino or similar would be easier but seems like cheating. The interface would need to match part of the character on the tape with the keyboard scan address for the coded keypress and then activate the correct keypad sense input based on the remainder of the character from the tape.
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