Yes, there was a knitting boom in the 1970's and Passap had a huge period of growth. Then knitting fell out of fashion, and Passap fell off a cliff. (We have

Yes, there was a knitting boom in the 1970's and Passap had a huge period of growth. Then knitting fell out of fashion, and Passap fell off a cliff. (We have a Passap Model 80 with most accessories.) I saw the Kniterate prototype at the San Mateo Maker Faire a couple of weeks ago. They are using commercial needles on a 5mm bed, so same gauge as a Passap machines. Looks very interesting, and seemed to have automated control over all the interesting operations. The sample knitting I saw leads me to believe that they haven't quite solved the tension problem yet, the tension seemed a little uneven. Still, it looks very promising and it could be a lot of fun for knitting machine hackers.