[rescue] Tektronix 4051 software?

[Ian Finder]

Trying to get this thread back on topic here after the pointless "We're
better than Arduino" tirade...
According to Josh, the BASIC can't read and write all parts of the tape--
namely what are likely non-basic files, and there's really no good way to
run assembly on these.

So we would need some kind of tape controller emulator like Richard
proposed to cover the 405X series.

If such a thing were built so that we could copy tapes, what would we get
out of it? Does anyone have a list of the software that was distributed for
these?


On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 1:11 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:

> In article <57890665.4080005 at gmail.com>,
>     Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On 7/14/16 11:55 PM, Meelis Roos wrote:
> > > A friend has Tektronix 4051 that has tape reading problems. Does
> anybody
> > > hav any pointers about where we might get 4051 tape images?
> >
> > To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any.  Additionally, the only
> > machine that could read/write 4051 tapes is another machine in the 405x
> > series, the format is completely incompatible with anything else.  This
> > is made even more complicated given that unless you're lucky and have
> > the RS232 comm pack on your Tek, the only way to communicate with the
> > outside world from a 4051 is through the GPIB port -- so getting tape
> > images *to* a 4051 to write it to tape is tricky as well...
>
> We need to homebrew up something that can accept modern flash card
> media and act as a tape drive to the device.  I seem to recall
> researching it at one point, although I may be confusing it with the
> tape drive for the HP2648 graphics terminal.
>
> At any rate, the maintenance manual for the 4051 on pg. 6-38 has an
> overview schematic of the tape drive.  The tape drive board itself
> has a rather simple interface.  Skimming through the description, it
> seems to be a simple serial interface and some control handshake
> signals.  Hell, you might even be able to just attach an arduino to
> all the signals and transfer data through software emulation.
> <
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/405x/070-2065-00_4051_Service_Vol1_May77.pdf
> >
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-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.finder at gmail.com