Keypunch interface moving ahead, more SAC interface assembly and some mechanical work on the 1442 card reader/punch

1442 CARD READER/PUNCH RESTORATION

The National Museum of Computing in Milton Keynes, UK restored an 1130 system a while back. Based on the experiences they had with the 1442, I decided I too would be better off if I disassembled the card feed clutch to thoroughly clean out old lubricants. Its performance is critical to the timing of the card reading process - if it slows the card down then check conditions are forced, stopping the machine from reading the next card.

Feed clutch disassembled in center, read clutch upper left

Read clutch with belts and pulleys removed

In addition, I partly disassembled the read clutch and made sure it was moving freely. There are some cams driven by the feed clutch whose mechanisms and their pivots seem stiff. I will work on those too.

various cams on card feed shaft whose pivot arms and mechanisms need work

Part of the disassembly process had me use a pin punch to drive a pin out of the shaft;  the pin holds a pulley in place. After I had removed one pin and was carefully disassembling parts of that clutch, I heard a clunk. I couldn't find the punch anywhere in, on or under the machine. I have a feeling it shot somewhere inaccessible in the garage, but until I find it I won't be comfortably buttoning up the reader and running it.

Parts removed from 1442 in order to access the two clutches

I also heard a smaller clunk when I was hand rotating the read clutch shaft, with a small rod dropping down from somewhere. The rod has hemispherical ball ends. I am studying the parts catalog diagrams as this too much be understood before I can power up the reader. The good news is that I was able to get old gunk out of the clutches and good lubrication inside. The read clutch has a grease nipple in a location that was completely inaccessible while everything was together, but can now be used to force in new lube.

Grease nipple on card feed clutch now much more accessible

By disassembling things, I took on a set of adjustments after reassembly that wouldn't have had to be touched otherwise, but these clutches are so critical to the operation and timing of the reader that I thought it worth the cost.

Main card feed clutch latch and release

Card read clutch latch and release

I found a small roller that is frozen due to grease, part of the card feed mechanism. Most rollers I have already found and loosened up, but this one escaped my notice until now.

Little frozen roller above midpoint of picture

NEW KEYPUNCH INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT

After some investigation I did find out what was causing my flaky failure to recognize a registered card, as well as the reason that my initial testing of the ability to read cards was not giving me any valid hole values. My relay contacts were oxidized - slightly but enough to cause erratic results for the Card Lever relay which determines that a card is registered, while the Dup 3 relay that switches the sensing pins for reading during duplication were oxidized as open circuits.

I used some contact cleaner which claims to not damage anything nor to leave residue - a version of Deoxit without the lubricants or 'protectant's of the other Deoxit varieties. I got good values for both N/O and N/C contact closures on all poles, reinserted the relays and verified correct operation of the keypunch while disconnected from my box.

I then inserted my box and again verified that I could do everything with the keypunch, no odd behavior while I was connected. Finally, it was time to hook up a terminal and see how the interface works. I was able to command the unit and continue with the debugging of the interface.

I found an error in how I was error checking one command while in short verb mode, found that the release is not taking place at the end of a punch, suspect that two character encodings in my ascii table might be wrong, and am still not happy with how my binary mode logic converts four hex digits to a variable I later use for punching. I began looking at each and clearing them up.

I corrected the error checking bug, suspected that the release solenoid needs 20ms just like the space and row solenoids so adjusted it, and looked at the encoding issue. I discovered that the ascii to card code table which is a duplicate of the encoding from the original interface built for the 1401 project, is using a BCD character equivalent which prints differently on an 029; the 029 uses EBCDIC encoding of the hole patterns.

I decided that we need two standard tables for ascii translation, one to the BCD characters and one for the EBCDIC patterns matching ASCII printable characters as would be viewed on a terminal program emulating an ASCII device. ASCII itself has a separate encoding of card holes which we won't be implementing since this is not usual for the IBM computer environment and it could be handled by the USERTABLE option if needed.

I will build two tables BCDtable and EBCDICtable, adding a command for selecting which is invoked in MODE ASCII. The command is CODE BCD or CODE EBCDIC. The code is added and part of the testing underway. .

Testing continued, resolving the error checking bug and cleaning up the binary mode issue. Since the encoding is correct, but spurred a design enhancement, it is considered closed. The release is still not working and I found a couple of subtle flaws to clean up in the code. Looking at the release, I suspected the wiring but also the Release relay given the oxidation problem I had with the others.

Ran out of time tonight but making good progress on the keypunch interface. Hopefully the reading of the holes at the second station is not being blocked by oxidation on the sense pins, otherwise I will have to open up that station and clean up the contacts.

SAC INTERFACE FOR ADDING PERIPHERALS TO THE 1130

I  hooked up the TTL input and output leads to the first board. That one only needed the twisted pairs soldered onto the driver or receiver, as relevant for the direction of the signal, to make it operational.

I began a second board, but after three sets of circuits noticed I had made an assembly mistake on a number of the receiver circuits on the first board, swapping the position of a 1K and a 12K resistor. Sigh. I will have to clip them out, reopen the holes and then solder in replacements for the 9 bad circuits. I began by clipping and raising the faulty resistors.

Completed board but with misassembled resistors along bottom row clipped off and twisted up for replacement