Re: New meets old

On 2025-06-17 18:07:57 +0000, Simon Clubley said:

The fact VMS supported punched card devices always amuses me as it clearly shows VMS with one foot in a long-obsolete era and the other foot in a more modern era.
 Did punched card support ever make it to Alpha ?
 BTW, did VMS ever have paper tape reader (and/or writer) support ?

Punched cards are an antecedent to RMS records, both directly, and via inheritances from RSX-11M, FORTRAN, COBOL, and ilk.
The punched card driver was not ported to OpenVMS Alpha, though a few related artifacts do survive within OpenVMS itself.
Page 2-1: https://ia902902.us.archive.org/3/items/stx_AA-Z600C-TE_VMS_4.4_VAX_VMS_I_O_Users_Reference_Manual_Part_I_Apr86/AA-Z600C-TE_VMS_4.4_VAX_VMS_I_O_Users_Reference_Manual_Part_I_Apr86.pdf CR11: https://www.vaxbarn.com/downloads/pub/pdf/dec/unibus/DEC-11-HCRMA-C-D_CR11_CM11_Card_Reader_System_Manual_Jan1974____copy.pdf I'm not familiar with any formal support for paper tape readers within VAX/VMS, but have met a few hooked to various ancient systems via serial lines or such, and all manner of communications controllers were once supported.
Punched cards and paper tape were fading into the 1980s, though a few examples undoubtedly survive and there are undoubtedly examples still in production somewhere because reasons.
https://maker.pro/pic/projects/diy-punch-card-reader-using-pic-microntroller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM1h-vrKbRg
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