Jeff, I have one coming to me in the mail today...FANUC A860 with a A20B-0004-0270 controller, so I am right there with you. I have found that what you need to dump tapes from one of these is a "behind the tape reader" (BTR) that attaches to the punch / OUT port of the reader. You can buy a used BTR compatible with the reader or create your own with an arduino. In my case the DOSTEK-440A appears to be the ticket, but there are others out there. New ones are pricey so I can see why people make them with Arduino's. Reader --> punch port--> BTR --> PC RS232 port. There are a few vendors out there but they're not too helpful to the vintage computing enthusiast IMHO....so I learned everything I needed to through a few hours of Google. DOSTEK is a program that runs on the PC that can manipulate tape images, but I am sure TeraTerm and a HEX editor would also work. Bill On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 12:45 PM Jeff G via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey all, some of you may have grabbed one (or more) of the paper tape readers readily available on ebay that likely have come from CNC machines. I was just wondering if anyone has actually made these work?
It seems many of these have a standard pinout/spec depending on what CNC controller they were connected to.I had one I bought some time ago, a Sanyo-Denki 2401 model, and it seems this was often used on a Yasnac 2000G controller, and has a 40pin ribbon cable connection, whereas others use a 50pin ribbon cable (on Fanuc controllers).
Just wondering if anyone has ever gotten one of these running, or perhaps knows anything about them? I spent a couple hours with mine yesterday and determined most of the pinout, but I don't know what voltages the power input should be.
I have a bunch of notes and the data side is relatively simple, its the control side I'm struggling to sort out.
Jeff aka Bags