Uploaded more 1130 card decks, testing Documation machine fix, plus improvements to the keypunch interface PC software

NEW KEYPUNCH INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT

I made the changes for the PC side program to display card column markers, a kind of ruler, under the scrolling window showing the current cards. I also worked on the 1130 simulator support for its encoding methods and causing the code to display the right characters for cent sign and logical not. This will be picked up tonight if I return early enough from my evening obligation.

By the end of the night, I had the special characters displaying, the ruler with scrolling functional and the 1130 card support working properly. I will upload this soon as the next beta version of the program

READ TAPE OF 1130/1800 SOURCE CODE

It looks like I will read the tape this weekend, pending other obligations for my friend whose system I will use. He has just returned with a Documation card reader, similar to mine, and will be building the same quick interface box as I did.

SHARING 1130 CARD DECKS

A question was raised on the google 1130 group about the LPS deck I posted, as most remembered LPS to be a much larger deck of many Fortran modules. I will go hunt through my boxes to see if I have the remainder stored elsewhere, plus will pull out the manuals and see what they say about the files.

I decided to upload a few of the line printer art decks I have - pictures of Snoopy on his doghouse and the like - and then uploading system files such as diagnostics, standalone utilities and eventually DMS load decks.

Many of the decks I wanted to read used cards with the diagonal cut on the right hand side, which causes all Documation readers to trigger a false read check. This is due to a test during what would be column 81 of the card to see if any of the photocells can detect light. This would mean that the card was not in a proper position and had moved too far or too little, casting the columns read into question.

The problem with the right hand notch is that the photocell for row 12 can detect a bit of light when the card is at the column just to the right of column 80, peeking around the notch. I had previously designed a solution that will force row 12 to be 'dark' when the reader is looking at column 81, thus permitting error-free reading of such cards.

I had to build it, install it into the machine and test it before working on all those decks which were punched on right side notched cards. I did this during the late afternoon, but hadn't finished testing before I had to leave for a donors dinner held by an organization we support.