Wiring A Vintage Teletype To The Internet

Once again... by CGP314 · 2003-08-20 21:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet?

No.

Re:Once again... by Channard · 2003-08-20 22:00 · Score: 3, Funny

Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet?
No.
You, sir, are hereby expelled from Geek Club due to your blatant failure to own every single piece of obscure or ancient technology ever invented. Hand in your membership badge to the steward and never darken the doors of Slashdot again.
Re:Once again... by iapetus · 2003-08-20 22:03 · Score: 1

Well, either that or get on over to eBay and start looking. :)

--
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Re:Once again... by dipipanone · 2003-08-20 22:23 · Score: 1, Funny

Who the hell cares about this? What we want is:

More SCO!
Better SCO!
Faster SCO!

SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO
SCO, wonderful SCO...
Re:Once again... by hplasm · 2003-08-20 22:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet? No.
I'm too busy overclocking my Babbage Engine. More Steam!!
Blast it! That cooling fan is too large!

--
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Re:Once again... by DemoLiter · 2003-08-20 22:53 · Score: 0

Will a ZX Spectrum do ?
Re:Once again... by Surak · 2003-08-20 23:04 · Score: 1, Funny

No, but I'd really really like to figure out a way to port Linux or NetBSD to the thing... :)

--
My journal has hot /. gossip.
Re:Once again... by McBride,+Darl · 2003-08-20 23:15 · Score: 0

Consider yourself lucky. My lawyers have assured me that all embedded devices contain SCO IP Infringements, and after our lawsuit with IBM is successful, we will vehemently pursue holders of 5-bit serial interfaces as well as 6-bit and 7-bit. My lawyers assure me that other "bits" are also an option.

--
Darl McBride
Chief Executive Officer
Caldera International, Inc.
Re:Once again... by DemoLiter1 · 2003-08-20 23:24 · Score: 1

Yeah, but it will go like 20 times faster ...
Re:Once again... by confused+one · 2003-08-21 00:08 · Score: 1

I'm still looking for a working vintage pdp, teletype and punch card machine. Anyone who can work with these is a real programmer!
Re:Once again... by DaveAtFraud · 2003-08-21 00:51 · Score: 3, Funny

OK. Connecting the teletype to the internet probably violates one of SCO's copyrights. In fact, I'd really believe this since the teletype and their code base are about the same vintage.

--
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben

Teletype printouts by dysprosia · 2003-08-20 21:39 · Score: 1

If these are really going to be implemented to do alerts and things as mentioned, are we going to have dot-matrix printouts like they used to be or something better, like an inkjet -- or what about a small LCD screen to save space?

Conceivably, it seems one of these machines would chew through a paper roll or two in a short time...

Re:Teletype printouts by gl4ss · 2003-08-20 22:02 · Score: 4, Informative

better? inkjet????? lcd??

the whole point of such to-paper logging is to log things so that the alerts can't get destroyed afterwards(because of a hacker, or because the machine has melted) by the computer. and i would presume dot matrix to be a LOT cheaper in the long run than paying for large amounts of ink for inkjets(not to mention the feeding system in inkjets tends to suck for such application).

and it's not exactly 'like they used to be', they still do it in critical places (or places where some 'hard' proof is needed for logs).

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Teletype printouts by lars_stefan_axelsson · 2003-08-20 23:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

the whole point of such to-paper logging is to log things so that the alerts can't get destroyed afterwards(because of a hacker, or because the machine has melted) by the computer.

And hence the old habit of injecting a kilobyte or two of formfeeds after the break so as to make sure the log printer was out of paper.

A friend, who shall remain nameless (though the setting was actually fairly benign), actually backed up the printer and 'X'-ed over the printout. But that was more for show, reverse feeding is unreliable, better yet to just run the printer out of paper.

A variation was recently used. A company HQ had a paper printer to log access cards as they opened the doors to the building. But, the printer was in a cleaning cupboard on the ground floor. The thief (an insider) just broke into it and took the paper logs with him as he left with his companions carrying a s*it load of computers.

The moral of that story is that paper is kind of fragile as a log material. Make sure it'll survive the calamity that the original equipment wont, lest you be standing with a long face with neither the equipment/data nor the logs.

--
Stefan Axelsson
Re:Teletype printouts by confused+one · 2003-08-21 00:05 · Score: 1

This precedes dot-matrix. It's fixed-type.
Why, because...
Re:Teletype printouts by dogfart · 2003-08-21 02:43 · Score: 1

That and teletypes print in one continuous feed, rather than one page at a time. Better for forensics, you could prove the sequence of events and more cleverly dodge questions about page numbers, missing pages, forged and inserted pages, etc. from the defense attorney.
Ink issues with other printers is an important issue too. A hacker trying to fill up your logs will likely cause any inkjet to run out of ink. Teletypes would be more durable here.

--
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Re:Teletype printouts by Repugnant_Shit · 2003-08-21 05:04 · Score: 1

Heh. Or you could figure out a way to connect it to a TV screen. And if you could figure out how to hook up a typewriter electronically, you could send out your own alerts to the Internet. I think we're on to something here.

--
Vote for global prefs bug
Re:Teletype printouts by operagost · 2003-08-21 07:38 · Score: 1

Dot matrix? Are you kidding? It's a daisy wheel teletype.

--

Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Re:Teletype printouts by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 07:45 · Score: 0

"Dot Matrix"? You are clearly a newbie :)

The teletype machines of the vintage to use the old 5-bit Baudot code used a little drum with fully formed characters on it which was slammed into the paper by a little hammer. The little hammer had a rubber pad to keep it from destroying the characters on the back side of the drum. When the rubber pad fell off (which seemed to happen all too frequently), the machine became a producer of brass shavings instead of messages.

Great fun back in the day....
Re:Teletype printouts by zakezuke · 2003-08-21 08:08 · Score: 1

The moral of that story is that paper is kind of fragile as a log material. Make sure it'll survive the calamity that the original equipment wont, lest you be standing with a long face with neither the equipment/data nor the logs.

Store teletype in a remote location

Problem solved.

--
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Re:Teletype printouts by temojen · 2003-08-21 15:01 · Score: 1

the alerts can't get destroyed afterwards(because of a hacker, or because the machine has melted)

Don't forget about this little tidbit:
/usr/src/linux-2.4/drivers/char/lp.c:257: printk(KERN_INFO "lp%d on fire\n", minor);
Re:Teletype printouts by lars_stefan_axelsson · 2003-08-21 18:47 · Score: 1

Store teletype in a remote location Problem solved.

And then we're back to the problem of destroying the logs by formfeeds, or just cutting the wire to the remote location. Problem not solved.

--
Stefan Axelsson
Re:Teletype printouts by dysprosia · 2003-08-21 19:28 · Score: 1

I know, I know :) You learn something every day!

Dot matrix was the only oldest printing technology I could think of the time. I had this old Star printer that would stuff up in paper-feeding all the time...
Re:Teletype printouts by Chops · 2003-08-26 07:30 · Score: 1

Don't forget another classic: reprint the last two weeks' worth of logs, minus the part where the machine's broken into.

Ahh, teletypes. by JessLeah · 2003-08-20 21:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'd love to get an old teletype going. Ever since I read Hackers by Stephen Levy, I really really lusted after the old hardware. (The first computer I owned was an Atari 800; alas, I never got to play on a PDP-11 or a teletype, or punch cards on a modified IBM Selectric (or punch cards at all!)). I wonder if maybe some enterprising geeks could set up an 'old computer museum and workshop' so geeks can go and learn of their roots. I'd love to play with a teletype! (I hear the bell on one of those is an actual BELL!)

--
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin

Re:Ahh, teletypes. by cryonic*angel · 2003-08-20 22:02 · Score: 2, Informative

I used a lot of antiquated equipment back when, well, before it was antiquated. Including, but not limited to, a teletype and a 300 baud modem.

The Computer Museum in Boston closed several years ago, but apparently their hardware went to the Computer History Museum.

--
I knew then, knew utterly,
the deal done in my heart forever,
though how I knew not,
nor ever have.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Gherald · 2003-08-20 22:09 · Score: 1

> Ever since I read Hackers by Stephen Levy, I really really lusted after the old hardware

Well I loved that book, but I can't say I've ever "really really lusted" over a teletype... :-\

--
The unofficial /. digest
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 22:29 · Score: 5, Informative

"I hear the bell on one of those is an actual BELL!"

The first time I used a teletype machine it was set up as a TWX terminal. You would turn on the paper tape punch and draft a text message using the keyboard and/or input from the tape reader. There was a "Here is" button which would automatically generate the id string of the terminal.

Once your tape was ready to go, you would dial (really dial) a phone number on the built in telephone and when you got the carrier you would start the tape reader and the message would print out on the remote side. As I recall, there was a control code that would enable the remote tape punch. And yeah, it was a real bell. There was another control code to ring it and it was customary to ring it a few times at the end of the message so the remote operator would know to pick it up.

It wasn't unusual for the person on the remote end to type in a quick "thanks" before the call ended.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by HBI · 2003-08-20 22:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

Dude, I admire your lust for history and strongly recommend you do the museum thing, but I also strongly recommend you don't buy one of these on Ebay unless your wife/parent/whatever is a very permissive soul! This thing is noisy as all hell! Hell a daisy wheel printer makes less noise than a teletype. You probably don't remember those...ok, dot matrix printers were considered an overall noise improvement over teletypes.

Geek points are hardly worth sleeping on the couch for a month. At least for this old bastard.

--
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 23:04 · Score: 1

"dot matrix printers were considered an overall noise improvement over teletypes."

Yeah, and those first Centronics DMPs really screamed. I walked into a busy shopping mall with my dad in the early 70's and from 100 feet away he picked out the sound of one of those suckers cranking away. There was a guy with a minicomputer (a PDP-8 I think), a video camera and the printer making ASCII portraits of people.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 23:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

check this
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by four12 · 2003-08-21 04:29 · Score: 1

But the SOUND is so cool! Clack-clack-clack-clack DING! I am looking for an old NEC SpinWriter just for that reason.

If nothing else, the punched out dots on the paper tape (now known as "chads") were great fodder for practical jokes. Take a handfull of them, pour them down the defroster of a friend's (??) car and turn the fan on 'high'. Sit back and wait for him to come out and start the car... :-)
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Rick.C · 2003-08-21 07:03 · Score: 1

Yeah, the noise was distinctive, but so was the smell. Sort of a combination of old grease, new grease, toasted-but-not-quite-burned electrical insulation and purple ink. Lots of purple ink.
The folklore of the day held that there were over 600 moving parts in a teletype and there was a message that the repairmen typed that got all 600+ parts in motion.
Speaking of typing, there was no "roll-over" ot "type-ahead". If you tried to press the "h" key before the "t" key was finished doing its thing, the "h" key just wouldn't push. People who worked with teletypes got used to typing in a very steady, rythmical manner.
Alas, they belonged to the "bad old days" and I'm not sad to see them go. (The teletypes, not the people!)

--
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by Smallpond · 2003-08-21 07:31 · Score: 1

there was no "roll-over" ot "type-ahead". If you tried to press the "h" key before the "t" key was finished doing its thing, the "h" key just wouldn't push

Not only that, but when printing to a teletype, you had to add a few null characters at the end of every line (along with CR and LF, of course) to give the carriage time to return, and the line time to feed. Definitely realtime programming.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by idontgno · 2003-08-21 08:22 · Score: 1

Not only that, but when printing to a teletype, you had to add a few null characters at the end of every line (along with CR and LF, of course) to give the carriage time to return, and the line time to feed.
Military teletype message formats required that end-of-line sequence be CR-CR-LF. Second carriage return re-homed the carriage after it had bounced away from the left stop. (Yeah, the carriage on an ASR-33 could move that fast!)
Without it, the margin would wander slowly to the right.
Aah, nostalgia. My first programming job was mainframe assembler for the message switch system at (US) Air Force Global Weather Central. I got to learn Baudot and the performance characteristics of teletypes quite intimately.

--
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by JessLeah · 2003-08-21 09:47 · Score: 1

Yeah, my boyfriend (I'm a chick) would probably kill me if I lugged one of these into the bedroom.

--
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Re:Ahh, teletypes. by confused+one · 2003-08-22 03:24 · Score: 1

Am I dating myself to say I've worked with a 28-asr, 37 and 43 model...
I'm not really that old.

So Minsky... did it work? by silentbozo · 2003-08-20 21:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

Depressingly, although he mentions the rationale for choosing the hardware and software that he did, with links to vendors, he never mentions if the damn thing actually works! Where's the audio of the teletype humming away? The pictures of the latest weather report, pulled off of some website, displayed as printed text?

Re:So Minsky... did it work? by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 22:39 · Score: 2, Informative

"Where's the audio of the teletype humming away? "

They hummed when they weren't doing anything. When they started working they went ding ding and kachunk kachunk. The tape reader and punch had their own noises.
Re:So Minsky... did it work? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 23:19 · Score: 0

It's the classic background noise in any old newsroom movie. I'm sure everyone has heard it at one time or another.
Re:So Minsky... did it work? by rnturn · 2003-08-21 02:05 · Score: 1

``When they started working they went ding ding and kachunk kachunk.''

I know someone who actually used one at home. He said he enjoyed the audio feedback when a long program finished running and the `kachunk-kachunk' of the system prompt could be heard through the house.
(aside) We used to play the old startrek game on one these. You could tell from all the way down the hall when someone made the mistake of asking for the galaxy map. It seemed to take forever to print that out.
Don't know that I'd want one of these nowadays. But I wouldn't mind an old DECwriter III (and plenty of spare power supplies). I had an old ITT ASCIIscope (sp?) -- with a built-in acoustic coupler -- back in the early '80s that I used to use for working from home. (Actually had two; one for spare parts.) They were real turkeys but sure beat having to drive into the lab in the evenings.

--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Re:So Minsky... did it work? by hqm · 2003-08-21 02:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

Yup, works fine. I even had it hooked up as an alarm clock, I had a cron job to print the news and weather at 7:30 AM every morning. In the original military cabinet, it was loud enough to wake people up upstairs, but then I put it into a quieter cabinet, and it was too quiet to wake us up anymore.
But we use it every day, our Yahoo calendar sends events to it by email (no I won't tell you the address), and we see a printout every morning of the next day's events, easy to tear off and take with you on your way out.
The original inspiration for this was from Tom Jennings' "World Power Systems" site. Check it out. I used his ASCII-baudot conversion routines.

Why? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

So you can glance at your spam in hard copy format before you throw it away?

Actually that would probably be a good angle to sue spammers for wasting your resources, given that it's illegal to spam faxes for the same reason.

In other news, this sort of thing is called a PRINTER in 2003. It's typically connected to a COMPUTER which is connected to the internet. It's quite possible to print remotely using Windows, particularly to leave spooky messages on your neighbour's printer over residential cable modem setups that have very very bad security.

Re:Why? by javiercero · 2003-08-20 22:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

Nope this sort of thing is called a TERMINAL, your vtxx0 session is actually trying to emulate the behavior of a paper terminal. Betcha you did not know that :).

A printer is output only, this device is input and output...
Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:43 · Score: 0

Thanks - the article I didn't read and the Slashdot posting I skimmed over make more sense now.

I've heard of such devices through tales of computer folklore - but I've never used one. When I was a kid, computers already had electronic screens. :)
Re:Why? by rnturn · 2003-08-21 02:13 · Score: 1

``It's quite possible to print remotely using Windows, particularly to leave spooky messages on your neighbour's printer over residential cable modem setups that have very very bad security.''

I recall reading a column a few years back -- written by Simson Garfinkel, I think -- where he described early experiences with folks using cable internet access. Clicking on ``Network Neighborhood'' really did show the neighborhood.

--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Re:Why? by texaport · 2003-08-21 11:04 · Score: 1

Simson Garfinkel ... described early experiences with folks using cable internet access
Five years ago this month, Houston Roadrunner beta opened to "21 carefully selected testers"
[ie., those of us who called Time-Warner every single day for months on end]
Much advice and time was spent telling of the dangers to NETBIOS sharing
[like a sex education class for teenage boys where the lab practical would consist of a trip to a brothel]
Being only a few miles from Roadrunner meant I ended up being the first official tester to go online
[after leaving the building was a "Gentlemen start your engines" moment]
The NetworkNeighborhood was only lonely for a few minutes as twenty others popped up
[once again, the search for p0rn easily wins out over the search for security]

Not as useful as all that... by dkf · 2003-08-20 21:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Given the sort of spam that ends up in my mailbox, hooking the teletype up to print out the subjects of incoming mail messages would require upgrading the teletype to have UNICODE printing characters.

--
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"

Re:Not as useful as all that... by shaldannon · 2003-08-20 23:19 · Score: 1

Actually, you could probably have a script go through your box and edit all those UNICODE chars for you :) (I know you were trying to be funny...)

--

What is your Slash Rating?
Re:Not as useful as all that... by sipy · 2003-08-24 06:38 · Score: 1

...but in those days people were able to send their "nudie pictures" to eachother by decomposing a nekked girlie's picture into combinations of printable characters, then sending them to eachother's teletypes. I encountered this on both early BBS's and on amateur radio over RTTY (which, by the way, still uses the old baudot codes in some modes) a looooooong time ago (can we coin "P.I."? Pre-Internet? Kinda like B.C. and A.D.). Pretty silly, I know, but it was one of the earliest forms of "digital pr0n" I know of. You could hang it above your ham shack until "the wife" got a look at it and made you tear it down. :

Just *try* to make a nudie pic on an abacus!

Re:Can't fault me for answering the question by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:51 · Score: 0

Yeah, pages take 30 secs to load cuz of bitorrent.... *sigh.

Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

I first thought that they managed to run the HTTP server on the actual teletype (something like a mechanical HTTP server!), so I was a little dissapointed to see that they used a modern PC motherboard for doing that.

Still, it would be nice to see if something like Contiki could be used for this beast as well.

Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by anubi · 2003-08-20 23:02 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, I thought this would be a good job for an ATMEL AVR chip... .
You might wanna use a Crystal Semiconductor CS-8900A if you wanna go directly to ethernet, or you may wanna use one of the AVR parts with the built-in UART if you wanna dialup. Yeh, you will have to write a little proggie to make tcpip packets... but you don't have to include everything... just the basic text stuff. Most likely somebody has already done so.
I am looking into these for some of the robotics stuff I work on. They look really nifty - especially when the whole shebang fits in so nicely with my motion control stuff. The ATMEGA series has a hardware multiply, so that makes the 32-bit Multiply - Add routine efficient enough for me to use for a lot of the DSP routines I need for control algorithms.

--
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 23:53 · Score: 0

It would have been cooler if he realised what he was doing; he has rebuilt a TIP with a modern MiniITX motherboard! If he has actually written the correct software to emulate a TIP on a modern TCP/IP network, that would be marginally more interesting.

Instead its simply an outragous amount of money that has been spent on a fairly boring terminal interface that he could have done with a PIC connected to his usual gateway machine. Ho hum.
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 23:56 · Score: 0

Take a look at the Contiki ports page. It seems Contiki already is ported to the AVR since it already includes a full TCP/IP stack and a web browser, you should be able to use it directly.
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by hqm · 2003-08-21 02:26 · Score: 1

My God, man, that's a fantastic idea!

You see, this machine's print mechanism was a military model, and it has fully loaded "stunt box", which is basically a set of
mechanical regexp state machines sitting on the printer control rods, it has about six of these, that can recognize sequences of
three or four characters, and closes a relay, so you can control things like motors, other teletypes, coffee pots, etc.

It's almost enough to handle an HTTP request, if I had a paper tape loop and reader (excuse me, a "transmission distributor").
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by hqm · 2003-08-21 03:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

My usual 'gateway' machine is not located in my house... here in the future, we don't have a central server in the house, each device has its own embedded processor. I keep an image of my personal Linux virtual machine on my "server" offsite (see "user-mode-linux project"), and run local copies of my world on whatever machine I happen to be using at the moment. A thinkpad in this case.
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by anubi · 2003-08-21 12:52 · Score: 1

I obviously did not pay the link my parent provided due attention... the AVR part was there along with the rest.
Thanks for pointing it out.

--
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... by confused+one · 2003-08-22 03:33 · Score: 1

Find a tape reader. Create the paper loop. Set it up so we can slashdot your teletype server!

ASCII Quake!! by Tim · 2003-08-20 21:53 · Score: 3, Funny

Hook this bad boy up to a machine running ASCII Quake, and give new meaning to the term "Frag"!

--
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?

Re:ASCII Quake!! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:53 · Score: 0

ASCII Quake at 75 baud? That would be insane.
Re:ASCII Quake!! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 01:19 · Score: 0

I once played CompuServe's MegaWars on a teletype. It was a turn-based space battle game where you see a 10x10 (or thereabouts) grid displaying a subset of "space" in which the game takes place.

Each turn consumed a page of thermal printer paper. I used a whole roll in short order. I was, like, 12 or something.

- JH

See, its sad when... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:55 · Score: 0

Ok check out the image.

Can anyone tell what those videos are?

I bet they are more interesting than the article!

Re:See, its sad when... by mrselfdestrukt · 2003-08-20 23:03 · Score: 0

It looks a lot like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Oh. God. I hope it's not.
Even a quick zoom in Gimp could not clarify it.

--
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."

I had a similar idea by ExEleven · 2003-08-20 21:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

I was planing on doing the same, except the teletype I have is much newer (its a DEC) im not sure the model number or anything however.

I was just going to write my own version of lynx that just dumbs the whole page or somthing like that. One idea of mine was to create a "web shell" or somthing as it would be fun.

The teletype I have can go up to 9600 baud, and I have a bay networks remote annex lying around so I thought I could use it.

I have a VT330 as well but its stuffed, oh well I might fix it. A VT220 would be cool, however I cant find one ata cheap enough price.

Re:I had a similar idea by mvdw · 2003-08-20 23:20 · Score: 1

A VT220 would be cool, however I cant find one ata cheap enough price.

I know where you're coming from - an old PeeCee running telix does exactly the same job (and more!!), but is much cheaper and easier to get hold of. It just doesn't have the retro amber screen look of a genuine VT220, though.
Re:I had a similar idea by macshit · 2003-08-21 02:10 · Score: 1

Actually most not-completely-ancient terminals are far nicer than a PC running equivalent terminal-emulation software, as long as you only care about seeing text. They usually had lovely readable displays, with a monitor optimized for the job, and just generally felt good. Unfortunately, DEC did manage to fuck up the keyboard in their later models (vt220 etc).

Terminals from the end of the terminal era are usually also much more svelte than a typical PC (especially a PC contemporary with the terminal), being little bigger than than the space required for the CRT tube...

--
We live, as we dream -- alone....

Once again: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet?

(nervously) Who sent you?

Re:It has to be said.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 21:59 · Score: 0

> Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of...

FFS, Just imagine a Beowulf cluster every story yet to be posted on Slashdot AND BE DONE WITHT THE STUPID "has to be said" JOKES!

Re:Reason: You can type more than that for your su by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:01 · Score: 0

> I, for one, welcome out new teletype overlords.

Yeah, some freak decided to hook up an old teletype with Linux so now they are our overlords. :-\

sad. by croddy · 2003-08-20 22:02 · Score: 1

and here I thought my Wyse 50 was cool.

oh well, time to start looking for a vt-52 I guess.

Re:sad. by ExEleven · 2003-08-20 22:12 · Score: 1

Get a punch card based Internet Soulution and you will be cool again.
Re:sad. by shaldannon · 2003-08-20 23:17 · Score: 1

I have a stack of green unused punch cards :)

--

What is your Slash Rating?
Re:sad. by CharlieG · 2003-08-21 02:04 · Score: 1

2 boxes of Punch cards in my office - Bought them last year for use as notepaper - Nothing says "Old time Geek" like punchcards. Yes, they are still made!

--
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Re:sad. by shaldannon · 2003-08-21 03:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wow...they still make those things!?

My first experience with punch cards was 20 odd years ago, at the University of Illinois. Dad would work in the lab and I'd use the left over punch cards as bookmarks (or chew toys...5 year olds do that sort of thing). My memory is hazy but I also remember the giant dot matrix printers and the audio modems that you put the phone handset into.

A few years ago, I was in the office of one of my comp sci professors and he had this huge box of punch cards. I asked him for some and he gave me 1/4 of the box. I use them as bookmarks still, except that now you can find them in Apache The Definitive Guide and Programming Perl rather than Winnie the Pooh :)

--

What is your Slash Rating?

Re:Reason: You can type more than that for your su by Channard · 2003-08-20 22:04 · Score: 0

Linux? I thought they said 'Matrix'

Re:WHY !?! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:06 · Score: 0

> For God's sake will you people let some of these ancient technologies die already!!

No.

Re:Ancient! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:16 · Score: 0

Yea, thats as scary as when the IMac came out with no floppy drive.

JESUS.

Somewhat related by thorgil · 2003-08-20 22:16 · Score: 1, Interesting

What i really lack of todays printers is the old typewriter "engraving" effect.
If I use a really "good", eg. linen or hemp, paper I want this effect because it looks nice and old-style (for diplomas and such), and have better archive durability (100y+).
So my question is:
Is there any electronic typewriter suitable for connecting to a computer?

--
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *

Re:Somewhat related by ExEleven · 2003-08-20 22:23 · Score: 1

Sure, try ebay, or see a professional printer. Cheap printers have cheap results.
Re:Somewhat related by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:50 · Score: 0

OF, but.
Hemp paper last far more than 100 years, more like 1000+!!!
Cool, ya?
Re:Somewhat related by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 23:16 · Score: 0

Lots of top-of-the-range electronic typewriters in the eighties had serial interfaces, for using them as a printer. You should probably be able to pick one up on ebay. And if they still make electronic typewriters, I bet they would have printer ports too.
Re:Somewhat related by mvdw · 2003-08-20 23:23 · Score: 1

What you want to look for is what is called a daisy wheel printer. These old beasts used to be common back in the dark old days when dot matrix printers were the norm - they were commonly called "letter quality" printers. IBM made quite a few, which were mostly used in offices and such.
You're probably a couple of years too late to find one in a dumpster, though - most of the dumpster material these days is 486s and even (gasp!) pentiums.
Re:Somewhat related by SharpNose · 2003-08-21 02:01 · Score: 1

I had a Smith-Corona electronic daisy-wheel typewriter that IIRC had an optional box that would give it an RS-232 input. I'm sorry I never sprung for that because it would have been fun to get it working as a printer.

I got an extra daisy-wheel for it that made real neat-looking block characters - even had a slash through the zero, if I recall.
Re:Somewhat related by bhtooefr · 2003-08-21 07:32 · Score: 1

I had a no-name typewriter with a parallel port interface, and it had (don't remember if it came with it, or if it was optional) a RS-232 adaptor with an Apple //c connector (same as AT keyboard connector - out of boredom I connected one to my //c, but it's an RS-232 port, not a kb connector...)

Re:yet anothor case of becouse we can! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:17 · Score: 0

Lets use a spellchecker, because we can! Oh wait, a trolling AC ... no, no you can't. Obviously. :)

Actually I do have one by heironymouscoward · 2003-08-20 22:20 · Score: 3, Funny

A VT220 terminal sitting here in a box, too precious to throw away, too useless to do anything with except perhaps hook up to a Linux box as a useless console.

And now I can hook it to the Internet! This is seriously useful stuff. Maybe I can make it beep as the text appears, in double size, so that people can see I have a REAL computer!

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature

5 bit serial AI by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:25 · Score: 1, Funny

"Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet? "

This project coupled with the authors last name, brings new meaning to "artificial intelligence".

Reliability by Detritus · 2003-08-20 22:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Old Baudot teletypes, like the models 15 and 19, could run for decades with just occasional preventive maintenance. A typical newspaper newsroom had several teletypes each for the AP and UPI wire services. These would be printing almost continuously, 24 hours a day. They were slow (60 Words Per Minute), but they were built to last forever.

One of my father's first jobs was as a reporter for UPI. He could "edit" a story by reading the punched holes on the 5-level paper tape.

--
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat

Re:Reliability by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 00:53 · Score: 0

I was taught how to read 5 hole tape from radio teletype machines while in the army. Pretty much forgotten it apart from R + Y (the alternating revs they sent). Could also identify the standard code the machine was using by the CR/LF patterns
Re:Reliability by guzzirider · 2003-08-21 10:18 · Score: 1

There have been some posts on this topic, however not many in regards to 5 level BAUDOT Machines, 5 level code translated into to today's tech talk would be 5 bit code. That means 32 combinations however there are two sets of these, and 2 of the codes are used as shift codes to switch between the 2 character sets. I think they were referred to as Figures and Letters ? Some of the control codes were the same in booth sets.

The pinnacle of the Teletype BAUDOT machines was probably the 28 series, (I am not dissing the 15 or the 19) I have almost forgotten about this 'vintage equipment'. Now I will not dispute that they are extremely reliable. Extremely reliable when one thinks of all the little parts. However when one does mal-function it is not exactly a funfest to repair.

Up until about 20 years ago I would still run into one of those things connected to an old bio chemistry analyzer ( a counter built by Beckman for Nuclear medicine ). I would not revel that at one time I was trained to repair the things.

I had a Model 28ASR connected to a home built machine based on a Motorola 6800, had 4K memory ( yeah I am old). I never really completed the project. Had other distractions.

My god, there is a www.rtty.com I guess if some one made it some one else will collect it. BTY I might still have Factory books around somewhere. I'll have to look in storage, maybe one less thing that winds up in a land fill ...
Re:Reliability by confused+one · 2003-08-22 03:39 · Score: 1

Yah, there's nothing like the light smell of machine oil and ozone eminating from the teletype...

ttyf? d? m? by Wierd+Willy · 2003-08-20 22:39 · Score: 1

Dunno how I would configure that. Seems like flow control wouldn't even be an issue. I have other questions though. Wouldn't you go through a lot of paper? And how wouold you get the links to work once you have the page printed out?

--
Stupid Humans.....

er by shakeittotheright · 2003-08-20 22:44 · Score: 1

can i be the first to ask why? ah, no, not the first, but can i ask anyway?

--

Arnie for Governor, Actors Speak Louder Than Words

Re:er by WTFmonkey · 2003-08-21 03:08 · Score: 1

Yeah, it's like people people who go antique hunting for old furniture. Sure, the worksmanship is incredible, but I like my things to be NEW and SHINY, thank you. None of that old wine, waitor, bring me some nice new stuff!

From /etc/termcap by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 22:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

#### Teletype (tty) # # These are the hardcopy Teletypes from before AT&T bought the company, # clattering electromechanical dinosaurs in Bakelite cases that printed on # pulpy yellow roll paper. If you remember these you go back a ways. # Teletype-branded VDTs are listed in the AT&T section. # # The earliest UNIXes were designed to use these clunkers; nroff and a few # other programs still default to emitting codes for the Model 37. # tty33|tty35|model 33 or 35 teletype:\ :hc:os:xo:\ :co#72:\ :bl=^G:cr=^M:do=^J:sf=^J: tty37|model 37 teletype:\ :bs:hc:os:xo:\ :bl=^G:cr=^M:do=^J:hd=\E9:hu=\E8:le=^H:sf=^J:up=\E 7:

Re:From /etc/termcap by frkiii · 2003-08-25 07:50 · Score: 1

I was using teletypes in the early 80's in the military.
Loud and clattery, definitely.
Did preventive maintenance on one once, bare wire in the tape reader switch bit my elbow, knocked my butt across the room.
After I recovered, I laughed.
I will say this, I was typing 40 wpm after a semester in 7th grade (1973). Learning to type on one of these (1980), I more than doubled my typing speed. If I was cutting messages regularly, 100 wpm and higher.
When I finished active duty, I was tested at 80 plus wpm when applying for jobs as a telex operator or typist temporary.
The great thing was (1986), because of my typing speed, I was making $11 to over $14 an hour, just typing.
My first job out of the service was as a telex operator. I worked with two other operators and a supervisor. I would grab the entire stack of outgoing messages, burn them all, then grab the next lot, etc. After a couple of days, the supervisor came to me and told me I had to "pace myself". When I asked "Why?", I was told that I was not leaving any work for anyone else. I was floored! I was doing the work of the entire area!
It was kind of funny, in hind sight, as my first introduction to the "real-world" after five years of active duty in the military.
Regards,
Fredrick

Re:Ancient! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 22:45 · Score: 0

Uh, not really? I have two new Athlon systems, neither of which has a floppy drive.

It's important that they make noise by Moderation+abuser · 2003-08-20 22:49 · Score: 1, Funny

What's the point of having an alert if you have to go look for it?

That means the older the better.

--
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.

Bell and other sounds ideal for alerts by SgtChaireBourne · 2003-08-20 22:52 · Score: 4, Funny

The bell is real, but the teletype itself makes so much darn noise that it would be ideal for notification of alerts needing immediate attention. My anecdote us that a friend once hacked one into a being printer for an Apple][. Not only did it make a din during normal operation, because his was missing some structural support it would occilate and bang into the adjacent metal table. Not everyone in the area had the same level of appreciation of this feature however. ;)

--
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.

Re:Bell and other sounds ideal for alerts by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 23:11 · Score: 1

They definitely made a racket. Flexowriters were much more civilized.

Already done before! by anonymous+coword · 2003-08-20 22:55 · Score: 4, Informative

Theres a program called heavy metal that allows you to connect your teletype to your box and be able to surf the web, check the weather, stock quotes, telnet into other machines, be able to convert ASCII into 5-bit and and read e-mail.

--
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!

Re:Already done before! by bill_mcgonigle · 2003-08-21 06:39 · Score: 1

You could also just buy a terminal server (ethernet port on one end, serial ports on the other). The serial console can usually do things like type "connect hostname", which establishes a telnet/ssh/lat connection to the named host.

They've been around for a couple decades, at least.

--
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:Already done before! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 08:55 · Score: 0

And, if you install the free text-mode Lynx web browser, you can even do web-surfing (in Baudot at 45 baud). Guaranteed to impress the grandkids ("...Damn boy, when I was your age we didn't have no fiber optic cables, let me show you how real men surfed the web.....").

Jeese I always thought grandpa was kidding when he said they used to surf the web in plain text. It also explains all those ASCIIized pictures of naked women I found under his bed.

Do you see what I'm seeing? by mrselfdestrukt · 2003-08-20 23:12 · Score: 2, Funny

Hey! That's SCO code!

--
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."

Re:Do you see what I'm seeing? by Alien+Being · 2003-08-20 23:23 · Score: 1

You made me go look. SCO appears in the termcap file quite a bit, including this gem: # Some information has been merged in from terminfo files distributed by # USL and SCO (see COPYRIGHTS AND OTHER DELUSIONS below).

Re:Can't fault me for answering the question by DemoLiter1 · 2003-08-20 23:15 · Score: 0, Troll

... but torrent ...

DECwriter II by Detritus · 2003-08-20 23:18 · Score: 1

It might be a DEC LA36 DECwriter II. I used to use one of them as the console terminal of a PDP-11/03 (LSI-11). The nice thing about them is that they use standard line printer fanfold paper. It had a 20 mA current loop serial interface, although I think there was an option for a RS-232 interface.

--
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat

Re:DECwriter II by ExEleven · 2003-08-21 16:16 · Score: 1

It was a Decwriter II, but it had an RS232 Interface.

No, you don't by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-20 23:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Compared to a teletype, a VT220 is fancy future technology. A teletype prints on paper, a VT220 has an actual monochrome CRT screen. BTW, hooking it up to a linux box can be actually quite useful if you have friends at your place and more than one of them wants to check their mail at the same time...

Re:No, you don't by egjertse · 2003-08-21 03:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

Indeedy - my (admittedly somewhat newer) DEC VT420 amber terminal is currently serving as console for my Linux firewall. Saved my butt a couple of times when I've messed up the firewall config and accidently locked myself out =)
Now the DEC VT420 uses RS-232 and works well with getty out-of-the-box, so there's not much work involved in setting it up.

--
^]:wq!^M
Re:No, you don't by Digi-John · 2003-08-21 16:44 · Score: 1

Dude, a month back, I was searching all over the place for one of those things. Actually, a VT100 or a Wyse-60 or something, I wanted a terminal for my computer. I ended up connecting my 486 via ethernet as an X-terminal, and though it is nice, it isn't as 1337 as a VTxxx. They have some Wyse terminals at the local building supply place, I want one but they are in use :-)

--
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.

Re:VIRUS ALERT by Wierd+Willy · 2003-08-20 23:24 · Score: 0

Hey man, I can cure that problem for you, go to the Start menu, pop up the little RUN box, and when you get that type in RMDIR C:\WINDOWS
That'll solve your problem. You'll never get a virus again.

--
Stupid Humans.....

Old hardware by hashwolf · 2003-08-20 23:26 · Score: 1

After reading this.....

I think I'll just get my old morse key and hook it up to the internet.

--
- "They misunderestimated me."

Re:Old hardware by T1girl · 2003-08-21 03:58 · Score: 1

And I'll just stay in my cave and try to extrapolate what's going on from the shadows on the wall.
Re:Old hardware by zzub · 2003-08-22 00:58 · Score: 1

Already been done...
You can send morse code via email using Morsemail
http://www.seanet.com/~harrypy/MorseMai l/

or you can have a 2 way conversation with another code operator using MRX
http://www.mrx.com.au/d_cwcom.htm

For more info click here:
http://www.eham.net/articles/4622

--
-=-

Re:VIRUS ALERT by DemoLiter1 · 2003-08-20 23:30 · Score: 0

so type in you're own login ((it it aksed you for it)), and you're ususl password. J0, ne1 g0t ususl passwrodz?

Telex? by Wansu · 2003-08-20 23:32 · Score: 3, Funny

I once worked for a company whose business cards had a Telex number on them. At a trade show, I gave a young feller my card. He studied it briefly and pointed to the Telex number at the bottom asking what it was. I said, "That's our Telex number." He looked at me and asked, "What's a Telex?" "It's a Teletype that can store messages", I replied. He seemed to nod, acknowledging my answer but then asked, "What's a Teletype."

--
Wansu, th' chinese sailor

Alas! by Garrett+Combs · 2003-08-20 23:47 · Score: 1

Finally, my would be nightstand has found a useful purpose.

--
Insert witty Slashdot sig here.

Wiring a Teletype... by Zyrill · 2003-08-20 23:51 · Score: 1

why don't we overclock our watches if we're at it - is there anything more useless than this project???

Re:Wiring a Teletype... by Garrett+Combs · 2003-08-20 23:54 · Score: 1

That doesn't sound like a bad idea, be sure to throw in some pretty mods, too. A cold cathode light here, some stealthed watch buttons there, and the ever so lovely watch window on the back. ;oj

--
Insert witty Slashdot sig here.
Re:Wiring a Teletype... by Zyrill · 2003-08-21 00:03 · Score: 1

wait 'till you see my "Complete Heatpipe Cooled Case" - my fellow countrymen will be wetting themselves again... *hahaha*
Re:Wiring a Teletype... by hqm · 2003-08-21 03:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

Actually, you can overclock a teletype quite easily. Just change the gearing from the motor. I 'clocked' this one up to 75 baud from the stock 45.5 baud. But that is a factory approved setting. I don't know how fast you can gear it before it explodes though.
Re:Wiring a Teletype... by confused+one · 2003-08-22 03:44 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure we had our 28-asr (?) running at 300 baud. We were using it for amateur radio work back in '87 at Va Tech.

Links by pherris · 2003-08-21 00:01 · Score: 1

VIA EPIA V mainboard description
EPIA V image
EPIA M manual (12M - slow download)

VIA EPIA M Mainboard description
EPIA M image
EPIA M manual (7.12M - slow download)

mini-itx.com - bunch of other similar project

--
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST

Hello Henry! by exa · 2003-08-21 00:10 · Score: 1

Hi, I'm Eray. How are you doing? Still doing a lot of linux tweaking it seems :)

That's a quite nostalgic hack. Have fun and happy hacking!

Cheers,

--
--exa--

How long before... by BinaryCodedDecimal · 2003-08-21 00:16 · Score: 0

How long before this get used for surfing for ASCII pr0n?

Slightly less Vintage by Leif_Bloomquist · 2003-08-21 00:21 · Score: 1

My Commodore 64 is wired to the Internet.

Connect to it here

About the setup

Next we'll see a Difference Engine on the 'net...who wants to try it?

Stock tickers by asherh · 2003-08-21 00:35 · Score: 3, Funny

For that true retro feel you don't need a Teletype, you need a telegraph stock ticker. Lovely things made of brass and wood!

Of course, inputting commands is rather trickier...

Yep... by simi-lost · 2003-08-21 00:37 · Score: 0

It's news for nerds.. but is this stuff that matters? ---

--
Mine means my own, but how can this be if I owe for it?

can acoustic couplers be far behind? by Lawrence_Bird · 2003-08-21 00:50 · Score: 1

I kinda miss the whole dial up.. wait for the whine.. stick the handset in the coupler.. 300 baud was great cause you could read it as it went by :) Somewhat related to the teletype/logging thing - is there anyway to make syslog alert messages appear in only a small portion of the console (video) terminal? Say like the last 5 lines?

Here's a real computer TTY terminal by ch-chuck · 2003-08-21 00:55 · Score: 1

Here is my mechanical TTY terminal, a VERY SIMPLE interface is all it took to get my Model 33ASR wired to a notebook running RH8, the 'history simulator' (simh) simulating a PDP/8 running OS/8 and playing BASIC games, just like a student would be doing in 1972.

(Will be adding more to the page eventually, like how to configure Linux to run a 110 baud ASCII terminal, etc. Lost my previous host!)

--
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }

Teletypes by galt2112 · 2003-08-21 01:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

When I was a radioman in the Navy, our division officer wrote a program to convert between BAUDOT (the 5 digit code used by TTYs) to ASCII and handle the protocol so we could edit messages on a laptop and transfer it to a TTY.

He showed me the code, written in C.
That was the moment I fell in love with programming, eventually got out of the navy and studied comp sci.

Thanks, LCDR Meyers!

You really had to Bang on those things. by rssrss · 2003-08-21 01:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

The first time I used a computer was 1971, when I was a student at the University of Michigan. The air Force had just bought them a brand new IBM 360/67 with 1.5 Megs of RAM for $14 Million. You could submit programs in batch mode via punch cards or use the computer in time sharing mode via terminals. Some of the terminals were based on IBM selectrics, and they were pretty sweet. You could type on them as on a regular selectric typewriter. Most of them were teletypes. Model 33 IIRC. The teletypes were nasty. The keys had about a half inch of travel and they had to be pushed down all the way to work, which took considerable force. Touch typing was out of the question. You only used those things for very breif edits.

--
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Re:You really had to Bang on those things. by __aaamdm2509 · 2003-08-21 07:30 · Score: 1

I cut my teeth on a PDP-8/I (rack-mounted, 18U) wired to an ASR-33 teletype. You used to boot the beast through the paper tape reader using a hand-duplicated paper tape. I later ran a lab with 32 of these things hooked to a timesharing PDP-8. Had to come in early every morning to stoke the fire under the boiler...
The other thing these were good for was printing program listings overnight. Come in in the morning and fold up 35 feet of a 40-foot program listing (think about it). Trouble was, teletypes were designed for intermittent duty, not pounding away all night. We provided job security for many a Teletype service engineer.
UM used to run a mainframe timesharing system called MTS on their '67. I wasn't at UM but our campus ran it too. Yes, it had TTY support.

Imagine... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 01:52 · Score: 0

A beowulf cluster of these? ;-)

Not as cool as you would think by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 02:15 · Score: 0

This would actually suck to have. Growing up, we had a teletype connected to an s-100 cp/m box. The teletype was a power hog, noisy when idle, and super noisy when printing. It would shake the entire house (since it was located on the second floor). Print quality was poor. I like retro, but real teletypes sucked. An element of the bad old days. The keyboards on these teletypes sucked too.

Syslog to display? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 02:21 · Score: 0

If you're running some flavor of X (e.g. KDE, GNOME, twm), you should be able to open up an xterm with -C. Shrink it down to how ever many lines you want to see.

DIsappointed by macshit · 2003-08-21 02:21 · Score: 1

Is it just me, or is this guy's choice of what to actually do with the teletype kind of stupid? `Weather reports'? `News Headlines?' Gah, how boring.

If you got a teletype, geez man, just put a login prompt on it, and let people do their hacking with ed or whatever, now that's how a tty is supposed to be used on a computer system!

BTW, the original emacs (on ITS/tops20/etc) had a line mode! I very occasionally used it in college when all the video terminals were taken... it sucked, but was nicer than raw teco. Actually I guess vi has/had a line-mode too, in addition to the ed/ex level (I think it was called `open mode'); do modern variants like vim still have this?

--
We live, as we dream -- alone....

Re:DIsappointed by hqm · 2003-08-21 02:39 · Score: 1

You can also do a Google search, I have a script which tells Google that I am an i-Mode terminal (a Japanese mobile phone), and it formats the results and pages in small easily printable HTML-1.0 chunks.
The weather info comes from MIT's weather server which still formats the weather service info as teletype output.

Ask a Ham! by dogfart · 2003-08-21 02:39 · Score: 1

Do you have an old teletype with a 5-bit serial interface sitting around that you've been itching to hook up to the Internet?

Archaic technology has already been discussed in a recent Slashdot thread

--

"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"

Re:Ask a Ham! by hqm · 2003-08-21 02:46 · Score: 2, Informative

The real point of the article was to point out that the Mini-ITX board, because of its PC compatibility and the price breaks due to consumer use, is now the embedded board of choice for standalone appliance types of projects. I think this is significant because it marks a crossover of the consumer hardware into to the embedded space, and also because it allows Linux to run in a huge new set of non-desktop areas.

The example with the teletype was really just a way of contrasting an app that previously would have required an industrial controller type of board, and now can use a consumer board.
Re:Ask a Ham! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 05:01 · Score: 0

Teletypes have still been extensively used by Hams for HF radio teletype communications.

Interesting the way this old stuff comes back.

/dev/ttyX by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 02:51 · Score: 0

You're not a real geek until your /dev/tty points to a true hardware teletype...

Amazing by ratboy666 · 2003-08-21 02:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

I had one of these units in 1976. Best I could determine, the thing hadn't been powered on in 10 years (at that time). The unit was built in the late '40s. It had a large condenser which was used as a spark suppressor (for trans-atlantic cable runs, as best as I knew). I removed it, and wired it to a KIM-1 as a terminal.

Problem was that the motor coils had grease or oil in them, and would start smoking if the unit was on too long. I junked the unit after a few years (wish that I had held on to it now).

Everything was mechanical (a series of combs activated by 60hz from the line to decode the baudot code. 2 stop bits needed to allow time for the combs to reset after a character had been printed).

Now, its 2003 and these things are STILL operational. Wow. That's 50 years after they should have been retired. These days, printer mechanisms seem to wear out in a couple of years.

Note to all the young 'uns. These '15 teletypes used a typewriter-like mechanism, with a comb to allow only one type bar to impact. Speed was 5 characters per second. At 5 bits per character, no lower case characters. There was a figures/letters shift (two reserved characters - no more state than that - remember the decoder is mechanical). '33 mechanism used a type-ball. 10 characters per second, and used ASCII. The '33 also didn't support lower case.

Ratboy

--
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061

Re:Amazing by Just+Some+Guy · 2003-08-21 06:40 · Score: 1

Now, its 2003 and these things are STILL operational. Wow. That's 50 years after they should have been retired. These days, printer mechanisms seem to wear out in a couple of years.
Speed was 5 characters per second.

For a slightly different perspective, consider that my $300 HP LaserJet 1200 prints at a solid 12ppm (yes, it actually does sustain that rate on the text documents that I throw at it). In a fixed-width font at, say, an average line length of 65 characters and 56 lines per page, it's printing about 728 characters per second (65*56*12/60). In other words, it's about 146 times faster than that TTY.
I've had my printer for about a year. In RIAA terms, I've had it for almost 150 TTY-years. 50 years is an impressive record. The equivalent of 4 months of output is not nearly so impressive.

--
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?

Wierd priorities by jhines · 2003-08-21 02:57 · Score: 1

For a guy hooking up a Teletype, one of the hottest, noisyest things around, he sure pays a lot of attention to the heat and power use of his computer.

A real geek would whip up a vacuum tube interface, something I suspect more than one had in real life.

Re:Wierd priorities by hqm · 2003-08-21 03:06 · Score: 1

In the teletype there are no electronics at all, however the power supply bridge for the high voltage loop does have four solid-state diodes in it. Must have been the equivalent of a 3.5 GHZ Pentium back then, in terms of high tech leading edge technology!
Re:Wierd priorities by confused+one · 2003-08-22 04:06 · Score: 1

Vacuum tube interface. They are called IBM 650 computers...

I hope by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 03:12 · Score: 0

you drown in your own filth

Re:Syslog to display? Sure. by Lawrence_Bird · 2003-08-21 03:27 · Score: 1

understood, but was referring to tty0 which always gets so messy with messages

Patterns with punched paper tape by jeepliberty · 2003-08-21 03:37 · Score: 5, Funny

In tuning and calibrating the signal on a radioteletype it is customary to send RYRYR. This presents a pattern on the 5-level punched paper tape like

1 o.o.o.o 2 .o.o.o. 3 o.o.o.o 4 .o.o.o. 5 o.o.o.o

And of course, if you ever get gibberish, you should physically observer the tape for a messages: 1 ooo...o..ooo..ooo....o...o.ooo 2 o..o..o...o...o......oo.oo.o 3 ooo...o...o...oo.....o.o.o.ooo 4 o..o..o...o...o......o...o.o 5 ooo...o...o...ooo....o...o.ooo

Video attachment by toybuilder · 2003-08-21 03:43 · Score: 1

Of course, the next thing is to add this video display:
http://members.fortunecity.com/drg45nzp/ braziltv.h tml

We're all in this together!

WHat's the big deal? by Chris+Tucker · 2003-08-21 03:51 · Score: 1

I did this years ago. I had a TeleType hooked to my Commodore 64 via the serial port.

The thing could dial into a local university, shell into my UNIX account, and then one could hack in a proper manly fashion, as God intended a man to hack.

Yellow paper curling around your feed, papertape running through the reader, and the comforting sounds and smells of a TeleType in full action.

You kids, you don't know what you're missing.

--
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!

Re:WHat's the big deal? by robogun · 2003-08-21 06:14 · Score: 1

They're also missing the comforting sounds of high-speed paper tape, punchcards and wall-sized magnetic tape units!

The demise of computing in my opinion was the invention of rope memory technology and CRT displays.

Mechnical ethernet interface by hqm · 2003-08-21 04:22 · Score: 1

Do you think you could build a mechanical ethernet interface?

It might need to use some paper tape to buffer the incoming packets before routing them. But there is hardware that does that:
Reperferator transmitter

Bridge it, Baudot! by gjbivin · 2003-08-21 04:39 · Score: 1

I'm another one who used a surplus teletype for hard copy output on my first home computer around 1976, a Digital Group Z-80 kit system, with all of 2K of RAM until I later added another 16K board. The TTY was an Underwood, and I genned up a 5V -> 200V current interface out of a few Radio Shack parts and an LED+phototransistor paper sensor for isolation. I then modified DG's 1.5 KB "operating system" to do ASCII -> BAUDOT output. It usually ran just fine, and when it didn't, dousing the innards with WD-40 would generally fix the problem (Really!) WD-40 was also great at rejuvinating printer ribbons when they dried out.

Programmable typewriters by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 04:56 · Score: 0

In the 1980's there were a whole class of machines that were electronic typewriters having a certain amount of buffer memory - so you could edit your text, store it, print it out later (great for resumes!).

This was in the day when PCs were much more expensive and PC printers likewise either expensive or real crummy.

Some of these devices, I recall, had a serial port input, so you could hook up your PC and use the device as a printer.

They didn't have the IBM Selectric typeball, they typically had type wheels.

Trade Friden calculator for 5-level TTY? by Animats · 2003-08-21 05:19 · Score: 1

I'd thought of doing this a while back, and looked on eBay for 5-level teletypes. But they're hard to get today.

I might trade for Friden calculators, though.

Had one of these hooked to a CP/M system... by theoldmoose · 2003-08-21 05:29 · Score: 1

Ah, this brings back memories, all right. I had a KSR 28 (no paper tape reader/punch) hooked to a Digital Group Z-80 based CP/M system (wrote the CP/M Bios myself, to use the NEC floppy controller that was in the system).

An interesting feature of the Digital Group system was 'minimal hardware', in that there was no serial chip at all in the I/O. Rather, you used a 'bit-banger' parallel to serial software timing loop, to send bits serially out on of the parallel I/O lines.

So the challenge was modifying the supplied 8-bit ASCII serial driver to send at a different baud rate and number of data bits (not too difficult) and 1 and 1/2 stop bits (that turned out to be tricky, IIRC, for some reason). On yeah, you also had to implement a lookup table scheme for transliterating ASCII to/from Baudot, and don't forget that Baudot has a 'letters' and 'figures' state that must be kept track of. Also, no lower-case alphas.

Anyway, loads of fun, and you certainly learn a lot of low-level kinds of stuff when hacking on systems like that. Very useful for working on embedded systems as a profession later in life.

Been there, done that by nytes · 2003-08-21 05:31 · Score: 2, Funny

I already tried it.

The pop-up ads were hell.

So I'm going to be using an Altair 8800 front panel for web surfing, instead.

--
-- I have monkeys in my pants.

I have one for sale... by sprocks · 2003-08-21 05:58 · Score: 1

For 3 years, I've had an old Model 15 teletype connected to the Internet. Prints out all kinds of alerts. It has a website that I can post data to using html that then gets printed at a quick 60 characters per second. It's not based on Linux but an embedded board using a TCP/IP stack. It's for sale if anyone wants it. Slashdot stories sure look different on this thing, but it's nice to tear off the sheet and read them from paper.

Sweet memories of Miss Baudot by outanowhere · 2003-08-21 06:02 · Score: 1

There's nothing quite like tuning into rtty, tweaking the demodulator til the cross appears and listening the beadle-beadle of the signal while watching the asr23 do it's thing.

Such a beautiful sound as the motor hums, the solenoids pull the bars and the print head smacks the paper--or the tape.

Spent some long winters in the shack kept nice and cozy with all those tubes and motors going.

Even the asr33, though it doesn't sound the same, is sweet. But it is an ASCII machine--7bit plus parity.

in case somebody might wonder, 5-bit is called Baudot. It has been in use since at least before WW2. It is still in use! Has one start bit, two stop bits, totaling 8 bits.

Baudot is also used for deaf tty's ("hearing challenged" for the politically impaired).

[ warning: college level text detected -- text beyond this point deleted. Please keep your messages and spelling at or below the fifth-grade level! ]

Say what? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 09:02 · Score: 0

these are what the deaf use to communicate over POTS. I'm trying to set up an emulator now for a TDD in java (telecom device for the deaf). Google gallaudet for more info - they've got a site on TDDs (also known as TTYs). The standard happended because the originalsystem was set up by a physicist who was deaf and thus, couldn't use a phone to communicate /w his colleagues.

I just tried to post in morse message response by Sam+Nitzberg · 2003-08-21 09:53 · Score: 1

Hmmmmmmmmm.

I tried to post in more with .s and -s.
No dice. system wouldn't let me.
Then, i convert it to implement the words as replacements. Didn't even use the old-school "dits" and "dahs", but new-school (for morse, anyway), "dot" and "dash". That didn't even do it... Darn ! Now I violated the postercomment compression filter. You can't make this stuff up. How hard is it to just enter a nice, simple, morse message?
That's it, next time, I'm entering everything using a hamming-code.

Don't believe me, try to enter a morse-message yourself.

Sam

Re:I just tried to post in morse message response by Embedded+Geek · 2003-08-21 17:42 · Score: 1

I tried posting one a while back, along with a link to a site that translates dashes and dots back to plaintext. It didn't work, either. Instead, I wound up spelling "di-di-di da-da-da..."
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. The only response posted was "STFU" in Morse. *It* got modded as "Funny."
*SIGH* I hate playing the straight man...

--
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."

Article may be off on TTY Models at Bell Labs by robo45h · 2003-08-21 11:34 · Score: 1

In the article, the author digresses a bit into the history of the Teletype, and says, "The Unix system at Bell Labs was developed using the Model 35 Teletype, which was the next model produced after the Model 28..." However, the 35 was a rather large and fairly rare unit. I suspect most of the Unix work done at Bell Labs was on Teletype Model 33 variants. This is supported by the picture available at this link maintained by Dennis Richie himself.

DONMAC is at the gate by andrewmuck · 2003-08-21 19:44 · Score: 1

subject line is of course in reference to true names.

I do remember loading diagnostic routines through a teletype off paper tape for a GA16/440, probably still got those tapes somewhere.

--
This is my sig, exciting huh!

Re:Syslog to display? Sure. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-21 22:15 · Score: 0

try the tail command

Teletypes???? by twoslice · 2003-08-22 03:47 · Score: 1

Turn around and run the other way fast. The first time I worked on one I must have touched a wrong wire 'cause it sent me flying on my ass. Teletypes are nasty peices of hardware.

Slashdotters beware...

--

From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...

TRS-80 printer by pyser · 2003-08-28 08:19 · Score: 1

In a battle of museum pieces, I used to use a model 15-KSR as the printer on my TRS-80. I wrote a little program to operate the cassette start/stop relay to generate the pulses required by the five-level Baudot code for each character. The relay in turn keyed a transistor to break the 20 mA current loop to the TTY's magnets, so that the delicate relay in the TRS-80 did not end up being welded shut from the arc-back. It was quite impressive to watch it work. I put the hookup away when I saved up the $300 cost of an Epson MX-70 seven-pin dot-matrix printer and found a parallel-printer adapter that plugged into the 80's expansion port.

When not connected to the computer, it was switched over to a homebrew TD (transmitter-distributor, sort of an early modem) to copy teletype transmissions on 2 meters. A carrier-operated relay would turn on the loud, rumbly 1/3-HP motor just before the machine would chatter to life with a message forme or one of the other hams in town, then shut itself down at the end of the transmission. Boot-up time was a remarkable one-half second, with the only hiccup being an occasional random character that was typed as the power was coming up and the selectors were settling in on the camshaft.

Sadly, I had to abandon the machine when I moved, but I got around ten years' use out of it. I got good at dismantling it, straightening out bent rods, tightening and greasing gears and changing typearm slugs (it came to me with a British pound symbol instead of the dollar sign, so I replaced that one, and a couple others). These skills also came in handy servicing the receive-only Model 15s from UPI and AP in the newsroom of the radio station where I worked back then.

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Wiring A Vintage Teletype To The Internet

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