Pro tip: I was reading an old trade journal from the 80s and found out the first CNC machines used paper tape for programs

I was cleaning out our shop's back office and found a stack of old 'Modern Machine Shop' magazines. In a 1984 issue, there was an article about the shift from manual to CNC. It said the early programs were literally holes punched in long rolls of paper tape, not the floppy disks or thumb drives we use now. I had no idea the tech went back that far or was that physical. Has anyone here ever actually worked with or seen one of those old tape reader systems?

2 comments

2 Comments

violafox21d ago

Remember those old player piano rolls?

kai56421d ago

Nah, violafox, those things were basically fancy music boxes. They just played back what was already punched in, no real soul or live feeling. Give me a human messing up the tempo any day.