Carriage control tape

A carriage control tape was a loop of punched tape that was used to synchronize rapid vertical page movement in most IBM and many other line printers from unit record days through the 1960s.

Skipping occurred under computer control, but a form feed switch on the printer control panel allowed a manual skip to the top of the page.

The tapes could be easily changed when new, continuously fed forms were loaded into the printer.

A job can request a specific FCB for a printout, and it will be loaded before printing is started, eliminating operator intervention.

Channel 9 is positioned a few lines above the end of the page, so a system that could sense the printer status while printing would, for example, have room to print a page footer or totals.