11/3/71 BPPT (V) NAME binary punched paper tape format SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION Binary paper tape. is used to pass and store arbitrary information on paper tape. The format chosen has the following features: a) no format of the data is assumed. b) check summing c) zero suppress ion The format is as follows: Between records, NULL characters are ignored. The beginning of the tape is considered between records, thus the leader is ignored. The first non--null character specifies the type and size of the record. If the character is positive (1 to 177), the record is a data record consisting of that many characters. All but the last of these characters are data, the last being a checksum. The checksum is calculated such that the sum of the entire record is zero mod 256. If the first character is negative (200--376) the record is a zero suppression record. It is identical to minus that number of zeros of data. One character of checksum follows this negative character. It is the positive of the negative character. The special case of a record looking like a single zero character suppressed (377;1) causes no data transfer, but is an end--of--file indication. FILES SEE ALSO lbppt, dbppt DIAGNOSTICS BUGS OWNER ken, dmr