Teletype machines

[kb2syd]

Picked up a couple of teletype machines this weekend. Can't easliy find any resources to tell me which type I have.

Both are dark green (olive?). One with a keyboard, one without. The one without a keyboard has a 1" papertape input or output (I'm not sure which).

I was told the one with a keyboard was 5 bit and the one without was a "ticker tape".

Snagged a couple of boxes of both 1" and 8" paper too.

Kelly

 

[Chuck(G)]

5 level, actually. These use Baudot code. Extensively used for TWX/TELEX as well WU and news services back in the bad old days. The one without a keyboard is called a teleprinter. Also not completely unknown to radio amateurs and the military in the form of RTTY

Back in the day when real 7-level ASCII teletypes cost an arm and a leg, computer hobbyists would put these things to work, either directly or through a homebrew ASCII-to-Baudot code converter.

One odd thing that you'll have to get used to is the "Letters/Figures" shift key. Since there are only 32 possible codes, a mode-shift is used to get additional characters. One got used to starting messages with several LTRS shifts to make certain that the receiving unit was in the proper mode.