Reading in cooked mode (was Re: Python MSI not installing, log file showing name of a Viatnemese communist revolutionary)

[Mark H Harris]

On 3/25/14 6:38 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>>
> 	A couple of us managed to "steal" the school login/password (don't
> think we ever used it, but...)... The teaching assistant didn't notice the
> paper tape punch was active when persuaded to login to let us run a short
> program (high school BASIC class, with a dial-up teletype). Playing back
> the tape and manually spinning the platen during the password
> obscuration/input phase gave us the plain text.
>

I still have one of my old BASIC tapes from way back in the day; I 
wanted to get the code back, or just remember why I had saved the tape?

One of my linux user group buddies locally rigged up an optical reader 
(IF) to a single board micro controller... we pulled the tape by hand 
using the center drive holes (sprocket holes) as a strobe and after a 
couple of false attempts read the entire tape into a text file.

That tape still have the caster oil smell of the tty that produced it; 
smell has a very strong memory association /  I can still hear that 
thing running in my head.  ... haven't seen one physically in years.

marcus