[chammerbeck]

Hello, new to the website. Looks great too. Excellent resource.

Anyway, I've got two K&T's (600 & 800). We have all the part programs coming down into them from DNC Pro and then to a BTR via serial. My question is the tape drive on these series or parallel? I was searching the archives and it seemed quite a bit of the optical drives are not serial. The drive on the machine has a 25 pin plug that plugs into the BTR and then to the machine computer. The only time the tape drive is used is when we have a power failure, to load the OS. I'd like to "dump" the OS tape(s) to a notebook and load it from there. Sound possible?

Thanks!
Chris

[SCRAPWOTSCRAP]

Tape drives on both the 600 and 800's were parallel. I doubt you will have any luck loading the OS from a notebook. Do your controls have onboard harddrives??? I recall most of the machines of that era were shipped with hard drives.....but sometimes remembering is the hardest part!!! Former employee of K&t, here. I know a few of the old timers that still service those old machines, so if you have any ????'s let me know, I'm still in touch with them. Sorry, I didn't see your post earlier, working with cnc routers these days.

[chammerbeck]

Thanks for the great info! I didn't see any drives in the 600. I haven't opened the other unit(s). I've only worked for this company for about a year and a half. Quite a few years back another machine shop had K&T's with hard drives like you speak of. Seem to remember the machines having a Dec PDP 10 or 11 computer.... I even got "bit" by the table once, 10 stiches later on my finger tip! Bad limit switch.

We're currently using CIMNet DNC with BTR's on the KT's and other machines.

Have a good one!
Chris

[redcobra]

You can get western numerical to read your exec tape and they will make a binary file for you that you can download thru your btr.

Harko

Hello, new to the website. Looks great too. Excellent resource.

Anyway, I've got two K&T's (600 & 800). We have all the part programs coming down into them from DNC Pro and then to a BTR via serial. My question is the tape drive on these series or parallel? I was searching the archives and it seemed quite a bit of the optical drives are not serial. The drive on the machine has a 25 pin plug that plugs into the BTR and then to the machine computer. The only time the tape drive is used is when we have a power failure, to load the OS. I'd like to "dump" the OS tape(s) to a notebook and load it from there. Sound possible?

Thanks!
Chris

[chammerbeck]

Thanks! I wonder how much they charge for that....
Will look for them tomorrow.

C

[JR1050]

Your tape reader is parallell.You can read the tapes yourself with a serial tape reader,Remex made several,I think the Ge 2000 used it.IF not they are cheap.Set the reader for 8 data bits one stop and no parity.Use the simplest ,most basic terminal software you can.Old DOS programs are great here.Your execs are binary,which means they look like garbage in an ascii editor.After they are read (you need 3 reads)compare them in Hex edit.They need to be the same.You could also try putting the Cimnet in reader to network mode and telling the reader to go.

Now for the part you dont want to hear.That wonderful Cimnet BTR you own probably wont load your exec.It uses a binary exec of its own and when I tried loading the exec for my Ge 1050,it wiped the Btr exec!The jackass at Cimnet agreed that this often happens.Their support blows-I blast them at every available opportunity!
Unlike my Ge,your K&T probably uses a 5v parallel signal which means with the right cable,you could send your exec right out the printer port!You also could make a cable from the tape port to a standard serial to parallel converter(try b&B electronics) and do the same.The strobe is the sprocket signal.and the data bits are 0-7.I havent done this myself,as Im working on a level shifter to bump up the 5v standard signal to 12v that the GE wants to see.Old American Iron Rules-I named my Brown & Sharpe "Godzilla"-it eats the Matsurra's....

[chammerbeck]

I agree the CIMNET guys can be a pain!

Thanks,
c