ASR 33 teletype with 5-hole punch/reader

[NeXT]

I'm looking at Telex rebadged ASR 33 teletype which seems to have a 5-hole paper tape punch and reader in it. I'm interested in buying it but I'm unsure if it is possible to convert it back to an 8-hole paper tape punch/reader which is more what I require. I have never even heard of 5-hole paper tape either. Google says it's very, very old.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Are you certain it's a 33 and not a 32 (5-level baudot)? They look similar. But compare the keyboards--32s have a sparser keyboard and FIGS/LTRS shift.

Baudot was (and may still be) used on a lot of TDD gear as well as Telex/TWX use.

 

[g4ugm]

I am pretty sure it will be a 32 like Chuck says. Piccy here:-

http://www.rcaglobal.com/rcaglobal/gallery/Photo20.htm

Hams still use 5-bit codes over RTTY ....

 

[Chuck(G)]

More detail here.

I still have ugly memories of alpha printout attempted in "FIGS" mode.

32s have 3 rows of keys; 33s have 4.

 

[g4ugm]

Well I had a Creed 7B as my first printer, and later a Creed 75

http://www.rtty.com/England/creed1.html

And if you think Ltrs in Figs mode was an issue try listening to Cyrillic with three shifts...

 

[NeXT]

I stand corrected. It's an ASR 32, most notable by the more compact keyboard.
It's totally Baudot (no ASCII) which I guess makes sense as it was surrounded by a bunch of ham gear that came in. Unfortunately that means it's rather useless to me .

 

[Chuck(G)]

Back in the early S100 days, real page printers were pretty hard to come by. ASR32s were fairly common as Telex terminals, so they were one option. Several outfits sold boxes that would convert RS232C ASCII data to current-loop Baudot. It was an economical solution, even if the character set was limited.