Kennedy Model 9000 9-Track Reel-to-Reel Tape Transport

CyberBob

CyberBob

Member
Reel-to-reel tape transports. They're just cool. What old sci-fi didn't have at least one scene with a round tube oscilloscope displaying some squiggly and a couple of tapes shuttling back and forth in the background? But interfacing them to a modern computer requires a bit of tech-no-ma-logical wizardry.
 
There are some out there that already have a GPIB or a SCSI interface and so aren't that difficult to connect to, just a software issue from that point. But those decks are rare. I have seen a YouTube video featuring a GPIB and a SCSI unit, but until recently (Panhandle Bob has a GPIB unit I am negotiating for) hadn't found one in the used/vintage market. Most decks have a 'Pertec' interface. This was pretty much the standard of the day, but still required something between the computer and deck, like a formatter to convert the bits streaming to and from the tape into a package a computer could easily digest. The Pertec interface is usually 2 edge connectors, one with tape control and status lines, the other with read and write data lines. Sometimes the read and write each have their own connectors. I have one of those units with three connectors but can remove the add on board that breaks it out to three.
 

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So, what sort of interface shall we add to her? How about USB? Wi-Fi? It should be pretty easy to connect an Arduino or Raspberry PI to the transports Pertec interface. The basic Pertec interface has 2 connectors with 44 connections each, but fully half are grounded, so a max of 44 I/O lines are required. My deck with the extra breakout card has 3 connectors with 36 contacts each, and again half are grounded, so max of 54 I/O lines. All of the connectors have some unused contacts. I'll break out the signals next.
 
Copied from Slack...
Kyle Jones
2 months ago
The Arduino Mega has 54 IO on it and should be plenty fast I would think...

Kyle Jones
2 months ago
Gonna be a nice bundle of wires to get that connected too!

Kyle Jones
2 months ago
There is also the possibility of using shift registers if the data speed is slow enough.

Kyle Jones
2 months ago
If the silicon shortage didn't seem to be attacking FPGA and CPLD devices the hardest I would say that route is best.
Click to expand...
 
Looks like I need a max of 20 inputs and 24 outputs. One of the ins and one of the outs are only needed for 7-track decks. 4 other outputs only needed if the transport number is not to be manually set. So down to 19 inputs and 19 outputs for a total of 38 I/O lines required. The picture below is without the special interface card that is in mine that simply breaks out the read and write data lines onto separate connectors. I won't bother showing it since I'll probably remove it. It's been a nuisance since the 3 connectors protrude from the rear of the deck so I couldn't transport it laying on its back, and instead had to lay it on the plexiglass front door and hope it didn't crack going over a bump.
 

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Before I got the correct connectors from Kyle, I was testing the unit by shorting pins on the edge connector, and, well, I must have shorted the wrong contacts at some point and killed the rewind circuit. Likely an easy fix, but now into troubleshoot mode before continuing with interface building.
 
I'll look for a way to display PDF's without having to download them. Not sure it's even possible but I'll try. For the time being you have to download it to view it.
 
I think downloading is just fine, so don't worry about it. It'll help distribute these hard-to-find manuals onto more computers.
 
Once I saw it was a manual I knew it would be hard to impossible to display it since you need adobe acrobat so you can page up and down.
 
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