Hi-

"with a small stepper or DC motor to pull the tape through."
 
You don't need a stepper for this.  Use the sprocket hole from the paper tape
as the sensor for the data bits from the tape and just pull the tape along.  This
was done in the very early days of home computing.  Late 70's type stuff.  In
fact, in those days, there were little kits for just such pull along paper tape
readers.  Anybody else still have an S100 buss machine?

  Cheers,

   Rich S.


---- Original Message ----
From:		Alan B. Pearce
Date:		Thu 4/12/07 9:13
To:		Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject:	Re: [PIC] Morse Code Firmware -- not big enough

>I have no intention to base this on standard timings at all.
>As a rough guide from my waterfall 'analysis' I'd say anything
>from 50% to 200% dot is a valid dot,

I seem to remember this sort of program appearing Byte magazine (or maybe 
QST) in the early days of the "computer revolution" as a 'whatduzitdo' type 
program for hams. I seem to remember periods of 50% to 150% being used for 
timing received streams.

>> The code is somewhere in the historical records department
>> at Byte Craft then all I need is to find a paper reader that
>> has been run in the last 20 years.
>
>I think that that could be helped. There is a way to transfer paper tapes
>into computers using a scanner and a black sheet of paper as backing.

Oh, I hadn't heard of that scheme. Sounds like it could be a do-er though, 
but would require a fair amount of operator time. I have some old tapes of 
bits I wouldn't mind getting at, and have been considering building a little 
reader with some surface mount leads on some strip board as receivers, and a 
second set as emitters, with a small stepper or DC motor to pull the tape 
through. A suitable small PIC with UART to send it out as serial stream and 
control the motor would complete the scheme. 

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