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Old 06-10-2008, 11:51 PM
Forbin376 Forbin376 is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Oregon
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Default Paper Tape Loaders - back then

Thanks Geoff. I used to have the loaders committed to memory but that was 30 some years ago. I had made a laminated card with the main 88-2SIO loader on it for the 12K 3.2 Altair BASIC and actually taught my new wife to toggle it in (in octal) and "boot" the Altair so that she could then load a BASIC program that collected billing information for classified ads in a local newspaper. The program produced an "error checked" paper tape (file) that then went to a timeshared PDP-10 to do the actual invoice printing on the high-speed line printer. The Altair was helping to earn its keep from the very start! In 1978 I was quite proud to say that my "girlfriend" was both cute and tech. savvy! Now after just celebrating our 30 year anniversary in June I’m happy to say that “both” are still running well!

Frank
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