Cool. This could come in handy when Ashcroft unveils the Uniform Operating System and Artistic Works Copyright Protection Act. You could do a Montressor on a hidden server and tap into its console with this gadget.

This brought to my mind a totally absurdly cool image, in a steam-punk kinda way.

Imagine a KSR-33 teletype, on a hand-truck. Instead of the usual pedestal (or inside it) is a BIG ass battery and an inverter (were there DC-powered ttys?). There's a 20ma current loop to RS-232 adapter between the tty and the 802.11b connector...

Imagine wheeling that thing into a meeting, and then surreptitiously reading email when things get dull?

OK, that's my major retro-geek episode for the day out of the way.

Edited by author 08-05-2002 08:42 PM
If you want to go for that:

The local (Hillsboro, OR) Goodwill store has a giant, matte-black-finished teletype machine for sale. It was labled United Press or some-such. The box was mounted on a metal table.

I'll hazard a guess that it was early 50s technology. Maybe late 40s.

Schweet. I have a box with a serial connector that will say any text that is sent to it. ;()

Stefan: That's a pretty hazardous guess, all right.

ASCII (uppercase only) didn't come on the scene until
1963. If you want lowercase, then that's 1967.
There's good history overview (although nothing will
likely ever be authoritative) at
http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/

Even some 1970's technology looks quite mechanistic.
I used to have a 1970's era 'glass teletype'. It had
a separate monitor, but the box was the size of a
classic IBM PC - and all it did was be a 80x25 terminal.
The keyboard was housed in a 1/16" steel shell, and had
a many-many-many pin connector (50, perhaps?). Inside
- yes, of course I opened it - it was all discrete
logic. Individual gates and stuff. Real technical
tour de force in its day. It even had random cursor
movement!!

Actually, although the monitor is long gone, I think
my parents still have the box and keyboard in their
basement somewhere. For the sake of history, I should
dig the darn thing out, photograph it, and document
it. Given it's construction, it likely still works...

Uh, teletypes existed WAY before 1963. Heck, FAX machines were around before WWII. They might not have used ASCII, of course.

The Thing at Goodwill was primordial. I'll check it out again next weekend.

Sorry about the way that came out. I was looking at different parts of your message.

I'm guessing (my own hazardous guess, here) that if the
machine was for United Press, it was likely worked
fairly hard. That makes it less likely that it is that
old. Of course, it may have been in the storeroom since
1961, and they dumped it to Goodwill when they moved
offices.

In general though, it just seems that a Goodwill store in
2002 is an unlikely place to find a 40+ year old teletype.
If it is that old (and was with UPI) maybe the table had
a Telex dial set.

Ya know, if it is that old, it might even be worth buying.
If it works, you could turn it around on ebay.

Edited by author 08-07-2002 05:08 AM
My first printer was a teletype. My dad bought it second-hand in about 1979, and worked out an ASCII->baudot convertor. It used to shake our entire house when he printed out BASIC listings.

The best bit was that it had no '<' or '>' signs, so he filed down a spare 'K' and 'A' keys and stuck them in one of the lesser used corners of the character set.

The more I live, the more I realise how cool my dad is.