ID: 
300
Dimensions: 
7 × 6 × 5 cm

This item is a small tape repair tool. The device is easy to use and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Devices like this were widely used in the 1960’s. It consists of a base plate with a movable bar and a manual punch. The manual punch is not attached to the base plate and so it is important to make sure it does not get lost. The base plate and movable bar have a pattern of holes drilled into them, in accordance to the ECMA-10 Standard. Paper tapes could come in a variety of formats, from 5-hole standard for telex, to the 8-hole version for computers. This tape repair tool can accommodate any width of tape.

Although it would take far too long to punch an entire tape using this device, it was very helpful when making small corrections or repairing already punched tapes.

If a punched tape was torn and needed to be fixed, both ends of the tape would be cleanly cut and then the tape was inserted into the device so that the two pre-cut sides were aligned. It was held in place by small support pins in the base plate that lined up with the tape’s sprocket holes. Patches were then applied to both sides of the tape to strengthen it. If part of the tape was missing, a blank piece of tape could be inserted and the manual punch was used to re-enter the few missing lines.

The device could also be used to erase mistakes. An entire line of punched holes was read as a blank line. If a person made an error while using a more advanced paper tape punch they could retype the correct line underneath the mistake and after the tape was fully punched they could use the repair tool to punch the entire line that contained the mistake, leaving only a blank line in the information.

This item is part of the UQ Physics Museum Oscilloscopes Tour
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JDB, SN