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Alberta Large Batch of Teletype Machines:$1,000

Alberta

wperko

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
381
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Anyone know if any of these machines are ASCII? Looking for one to connect to a PDP-11....

Hi,

I would bet they're all USA ASCII! They're ASR-33s, and other printers etc. They're just printers and printer terminals.
 
This popped up in greenkeys yesterday.
I'm only immediately seeing what looks to be a single 33 in the lot (and it's weird because it has a Telex CCU which I don't think is compatible). The rest are BAUDOT 32's and I can't completely identify the teleprinters but I'm seeing a lot of other spare parts too which might be interesting. It's tempting if there was a group buy. I can at least offer a staging point for people on the coast and some money.
The place is 8 hours north of me. It's incredibly tempting but the 5/16 junction is expected to see 10 to 12 inches of snow tonight.
 
Last edited:
This popped up in greenkeys yesterday.
I'm only immediately seeing what looks to be a single 33 in the lot (and it's weird because it has a Telex CCU which I don't think is compatible). The rest are BAUDOT 32's and I can't completely identify the teleprinters but I'm seeing a lot of other spare parts too which might be interesting. It's tempting if there was a group buy. I can at least offer a staging point for people on the coast and some money.
The place is 8 hours north of me. It's incredibly tempting but the 5/16 junction is expected to see 10 to 12 inches of snow tonight.

Hi,

Look at all the photos ... there are three ASR-33s with all the bells and whistles ... built-in modem, dialer, paper tape punch/readers etc.

I wish I had one just to look at, but I don't have any space in my tiny apartment for anything that size.

The other printers are printers ... it's not brain surgery to connect them to a computer. Most people should be able to do a couple of experiments sending data from the computer to the cable and get the connection working. Then just make sure the data rate doesn't exceed the printers printing speed capabilities.

.
 
Look at all the photos ... there are three ASR-33s with all the bells and whistles ... built-in modem, dialer, paper tape punch/readers etc.
NeXT is correct on this, there is only one Model 33. The other two are model 32's which are baudot machines, not ASCII. Easiest way to spot them is they only have 3 rows of keys + space bar.
 
You can convert BAUDOT to ASCII and vice-versa using a variety of microcontroller adapters but you will have no special characters available. The punches are also incompatible due to the 33 having 8 holes + sprocket while the 32 has 5 holes + sprocket.
 
You can convert BAUDOT to ASCII and vice-versa using a variety of microcontroller adapters but you will have no special characters available. The punches are also incompatible due to the 33 having 8 holes + sprocket while the 32 has 5 holes + sprocket.

Hi,

Yes, I have 5-position paper tapes from a WWII Model 17 Teletype my dad used for HAM TTY. The one I have is actually a BASIC language program I wrote back in the 1960's that ran on the computer system used by Great Northern Railroad where my dad worked. I don't remember that computer model, but it was fun that he could type in my program and it worked. He brought home the paper tape of the program and so I could print the listing on his teletype and I thought I'd eventually have computer access to play with BASIC some more ... until I built my Altair 8800 in 1975, but couldn't afford any more than just using the front panel switches and the UofM IT dept. didn't have a way to read in my 5-level paper tape.

BTW, back in those days we only had access to about 76 or so characters anyway ... Upper Case Alpha and Numeric characters.

.
 
I believe the old TDD standard was 5-level or Turbo code. Somewhere along the line that changed to ASCII.
TWX and TELEX was, as far as I remember mostly a 5-level ("3-row") system, although ASCII ("4-row") crept into the picture later. At one point, you could use either and the telco would perform the conversion.
 
Hi,

When I was in college, they had 8-level ASR Teletypes ... I thought they were ASR-33s but maybe a newer number like ASR-34 or -35 ... I never really paid attention.
 
The ASR-35's look nothing like the 33's. I had a 33 long ago and gave it away. Now I wish I still had it. Nothing like that sound or smell of oil.
 
I have one 33 here that I added a modem into years ago because I found getting parts so hard to source.
I would not at all mind a 32 just to compliment the other and see if there's other accessories.
 
ASR Model 35s were used a lot in flight simulators and data centers. They were (almost) always 8-bit ASCII devices. Pretty much anyone who ever worked on the BAUDOT Model 28s had no trouble figuring out how to work on these.
 
To be clear, both the 33 and 35 are advertised by Teletype as being 8 level machines. My recollection is that the 35 is the heavy-duty version of the 33. Big wide floor-standing device. Same speed, however.

Strange how there isn't much in the way of the Dataspeed 40 gear lingering around. There were a couple of outfits that OEMed the line printer (band printer) mech, repackaged it in a sound-deadening enclosure and fit it with a Dataproducts (IIRC) interface for use with minicomputers. It was something that would fit on a tabletop and could print 132 column tractor-feed forms at about 150 lpm.
 
I think I worked on every single type of machine shown on that page at one time or another, Chuck(G). One note on Model 37s: the ASR low-level model had a huge cabinet of electronics built into the pedestal. It was one of the easiest electronics devices to troubleshoot--everything was TTL and the schematics were really good. The printer was pretty quick too, as it would print at 110 BAUD. It was the last fully mechanical printer/reperforator combination Teletype built. The worst thing about them was the keyboard mechanism. Several critical parts were plastic and had a relatively high wear rate--and to replace those parts after the inevitable wear-related failure required a near-complete disassembly of the whole keyboard. Not a fun thing when upper management panics because both of the machines they had died within a day or two of each other and the part had an ETA of 3-4 weeks. . .

Model 40s were a lot of fun to work on, but I also understand why not too many of them are still in service. The rubber belt that held all of the pallets in it would disintegrate after a few years and pallets would start falling out. We always kept a few of those belts in our ready spares stock for that reason. The mechanism itself was rock solid and would print continuously for days/weeks at a time (weather circuits would often print for all but five to six minutes of every hour). It was a fast one too, as it printed at 1200 BAUD. The sound of one printing was different from any other printer I'd worked with, even the drum printers in the DSTE (Digital Subscriber Terminal Equipment) that I also worked on back then.
 
If anyone still has one of the Dataspeed line printers, I do have a schematic for it. It could print a lot faster than 1200 bps, however, as I recall, if you used parallel handshaking with it, rather than the serial interface.
 
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