ODEC-manufactured printer was manufactured in Rhode Island. This is no ordinary desktop printer, though. It’s a roughly 175lb (80 Kg) beast capable of printing 100 lines per minute. Each line is 132 characters wide, printed on the tractor-feed green bar paper we all associate with old computer systems.

This sort of printer was commonly known as a chain printer, as the letters are on a chain that rides over a series of 66 hammers. Logic on this printer is 74 series logic chips – no custom silicon or LSI (Large Scale Integration) parts on this 47-year-old printer.

Iomec punch tapes were used to store and communicate computationally relevant data for various types of computers and calculators. Program code, inputs, and generated data were stored in this way. 

DataDigitronics Corporation, Albertson, Long Island, was formed in 1957 when Underwood Corporation closed its Elecom computer division. Albert A. Auerbach, former engineer with Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and Electronic Computer Corporation (ELECOM), became the company's first President. 

When Auerbach left the company in 1962 Eugene Leonard became Digitronics new President. In 1964 Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp., alias Conelco, Inc. alias North American Philips Corp., acquired an interest in Digitronics. 

North American Philips sold its majority interest in Digitronics in 1972. In that year Digitronics merged with Iomec Inc. and became the latter’s division. Subsequently, Data 100 Corp. acquired Iomec in 1975 and the next year Data 100 sold the Digitronics division to Comtec Information Systems, Inc., Rhode Island.

The tape shown here is 7-bit tape, meaning there are seven columns where a hole either is or is not punched. This does not include the column of smaller holes with which the tape is fed (propelled by a spoked gear whose teeth fit the smaller holes) and the two columns of holes at the edges of the tape. This reader propels the tape in between the two boxes attached to the front of the faceplate and communicates the stored data to an attached device.

A discussion of punch tape data storage is available here.