On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 8:35 AM, allison via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Note: TU58 (variant of DC100 tape) to my knowledge was never used with PDP-8 > in any flavor. There is no reason why not other than no driver and it 8bit > only and the blocking is 512bytes.
I remember a lot of discussion in PDP-8 user group newsletters about the TU-58 when it came out (due to cost, size, and convenience), but one technical problem dominated the articles - how to generate a break from various types of PDP-8 serial ports. ISTR some of the talk was around hacking the hardware to make it possible (jamming multiple nulls into the transmit latches without waiting for the previous one to complete, for one). In the end, I think it never worked out to be a favorable peripheral to go with, perhaps because floppies got cheaper and easier and older machines declined in active use. -ethan
