VTC P.34 – Building the Paper Tape Interface

We’re making more progress on the tube computer, moving forward with our redesign based on the MC14500 Minimal ICU System. Last time we figured out how we’re going to address the input, output and scratch registers. We got those boards built and ready for the next stage. Today, we’ll be talking a bit about how the paper tape interface and global clocking is going to work, we’ll build and test some boards, and then we’ll get them mounted to the back board!

Ken Shirriff’s article on the MC14500:
https://www.righto.com/2021/02/a-one-...

Tube Computer Wiki:
https://github.com/Nakazoto/UEVTC/wiki

MC14500 Single Board Computer:
   • Playing a Game on a MC14500 1-bit Sin...  

How I cut my PCBs:
   • Machining a PCB on the 3-axis CNC Bri...  

If you want to support the channel please hop over to Patreon:
  / usagielectric  

Also, we now have some epic shirts for sale!
https://my-store-11554688.creator-spr...

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Discord:   / discord  
Twitter:   / usagielectric  

Intro Music adapted from:
Artist: The Runaway Five
Title: The Shinra Shuffle
https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01847

Thanks for watching!

Chapters
0:00 Where we left off and where we’re going
2:52 A quick refresher on the MC14500, UE14500 and Minimal ICU System
5:40 How are we going to interface to the paper tape?
6:50 scratch, scratch, scratch
7:24 Cat tax paid
10:10 Design of the test board
11:48 Testing the test board
14:59 Building new PCBs
16:19 Smoke test
18:24 Testing the buffer inverters
19:11 Testing the clock delay
21:14 Mounting all the pieces to the backing board
22:32 Coming together nicely!
24:31 Bunny!