Brave users of history’s earliest computers programmed those massive electronic beasts through jumper wires plugged into arrays of sockets. With so few computers in existence (none of them compatible ...

After previously working out a suitable approach to create a period-correct paper tape reader for his tube-based, MC14500B processor-inspired computer, [David Lovett] over at the Usagi Electric farm ...

Building a paper tape reader by itself isn’t super complicated: you need a source of light, some photoreceptors behind the tape to register the presence of holes and some way to pull the tape through ...

(1) A slow, low-capacity, sequential storage medium used on earlier computing and communications devices. Paper tape holds data as patterns of punched holes. (2) A paper roll printed by a calculator ...