TELECOMMUNICATIONS FOR THE
 DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING

TTY / TDD History and Resources - Also Closed Captioning

WCLG UPI TELETYPE Morgantown WV 

UPI Teletype Machine From KOY Radio Phoenix AZ.

EXTEL - Reuters News Service and Printers

RTTY RATT RADIO TELETYPE 
 Equipment and History HERE

HAL HISTORY
HAL Devices - HAL Communications Corp.

ESSCO 

DOVETRON

CHAD IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT 
A history of Jim Haynes - Teletype, General Electric Computer and more...

See above....  Baudot or BCD?  Seems  to be a table top  
28KSR  We have one like it!  it was used as a console on
the DEC  PDP-4... hmm... where can I find the PDPD-4?!
Click to see larger photo...

DECwriter Printing Terminals

Decwriter Printing terminals  were the 'modern' replacement  for the  Teletype KSR 33 in many offices that were connected to timeshare computers. The LA36 DECwriter II was the company's first commercially successful keyboard terminal and became the de facto market standard.

The LA-36 utilizes all solid state logic and has an electronic keyboard. The only mechanical components are the 9-pin print head, the print head motion mechanism, and the paper line feed hardware. 

The DECwriter progression and dates

The DECwriter II -30 cps, also known as the LA36, is the second in a series of printing terminals by Digital Equipment Corporation, being introduced in 1974.

There are two versions, one with a keyboard and several switches, called the LA36, and one with just the printing assembly and less switches, designated LA35.

It was preceded by the DECwriter 30 cps in 1970.

It is succeeded by the DECwriter III in 1978.

The DECwriter IV, also known as the LA38, is the last in a series of printing terminals by Digital Equipment Corporation, being introduced in 1982.

There are two versions, one with a keyboard and several switches, called the LA38, and one with just the printing assembly and less switches, designated LA34.

The DECwriter IV models ended the floorstanding design of the previous DECwriters and are tabletop models, about the size of a large typewriter.

The DECwriter IV was the last of DEC's printing terminals.

History of the DECwriter III  At SMECC

Ben Cohen  tells us, "The DECwriter III was donated sometime in probably the early 90s by Honeywell to Community Information and Referral (http://www.cir.org/), a Phoenix nonprofit that maintains a database of community, state, and local services and a call center to help people find those services. The DECwriter III was connected to a VAX 11/750 until 1995 when then VAX was replaced with a Sun server running  Sybase."  - SMECC 
Thanks Ben for passing this  unit on to us  for the museum's use. We have the sun server here in the collection too! 

Bell System Wartime Booklet PDF FILE    Thanks  to JimC  IN SF CA !

By Jack Williams
STAFF WRITER

September 18, 2004

Virgil Bradshaw's idea of bringing The Associated Press up to speed was the revolutionary LaserPhoto system.

As deputy director of the wire service's communications department in the 1970s, he introduced a breakthrough technology that, by processing photos with heat, produced higher-quality images that could rapidly reach news publications.

"Before that, the photos were transmitted slowly on a photo fax machine and they were grainy in quality," said Patrick Bradshaw, Mr. Bradshaw's son and chief of communications for AP in Indianapolis.

When Mr. Bradshaw retired from AP in 1985, he moved from New Jersey to Ramona, where he became managing editor of the monthly San Vicente Valley News.

He died Sept. 10 of complications from a stroke and congestive heart failure at his Ramona home, his son said. He was 77.

In the competitive world of wire services, Mr. Bradshaw always looked for an edge. "He was a driving force at AP in keeping it ahead of the game," Patrick Bradshaw said.

In developing the LaserPhoto technology, Mr. Bradshaw consulted professors and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to refine the concept and create a prototype. He then enlisted a Florida firm to begin production.

The system entailed processing with heat instead of chemistry and the application of a laser light source instead of conventional lamps.

AP updated the system in 1989 with computer technology that allowed photos to be viewed on a computer screen.

Mr. Bradshaw, the son of an AP Teletype operator, was born in Hannibal, Mo.

He left his job as an AP copy boy in Kansas City, Mo., to join the Navy during World War II. He served overseas as a yeoman third class, with a specialty in journalism, aboard the destroyer escort Emery.

After the war, Mr. Bradshaw attended Rockford College and resumed his job with AP in Kansas City, working his way up to Teletype operator.

He became chief of communications in AP's St. Louis office and continued in that capacity in Indianapolis and Chicago. When he became deputy director of communications, he oversaw chiefs in each AP bureau and negotiated union contracts.

Seeking a milder climate, Mr. Bradshaw and his first wife, Mary, moved from Matawan, N.J., to San Diego Country Estates after his retirement.

The idea of writing and editing appealed to him after a career on the technical side of the news industry. So he began contributing photographs to the San Vicente Valley News.

Before long, he was supervising a small staff, covering community news and writing editorials. As the health of his wife began to deteriorate before she died of cancer in 1995, he cut back on his workload.

"The newspaper was a passion for him, and he enjoyed it immensely," Patrick Bradshaw said. "He was always a bit of a workaholic – always had to be doing something or going somewhere."

Despite the demands of his AP job, he always found time for his eight children. "He never missed any of our games," son Mike Bradshaw said. "Everybody played different sports in high school, and somehow he was there for us."

A sports enthusiast, Mr. Bradshaw had played football in high school and had umpired in a semiprofessional baseball league. He was an avid hunter and tennis and table tennis player.

Survivors include his second wife, Perdita; daughters, Debbie Gasikowski of New Jersey, Mary Murphy of Denver and Annette Bradshaw of Escondido; sons, Mike Bradshaw of San Diego, Steve Bradshaw of New Jersey, Patrick Bradshaw of Indianapolis, Tim Bradshaw of New Jersey and John Bradshaw of Washington, D.C.; and 20 grandchildren.

Services were Wednesday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, Ramona. Interment was at Nuevo Memory Gardens, Ramona. Donations are suggested to the Elizabeth Hospice, 150 W. Crest St., Escondido, CA 92025 or Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, 537 E St., Ramona, CA 92065.

Jack Williams: (619) 542-4587; jack.williams@uniontrib.com

(marked on back  8-46)

PDF file for You!

Contributed By Duncan Brown  This scan of (and introduction to) a 1953 packet of Kleinschmidt commercial equipment literature is now online. Thanks! He's done a really nice job of digitizing it. 

Often in discussions of Teletype Corpration modules used in encryption gear or in associated equipment we run into designations such as "LTPE". The system used is curious, and "just growed", leading to some curiosities, to say the least.

Let me mention first that on gear made by Teletype for the Bell Telephone System, this system of codes was not used but rather a different one. As a result, many people whose experience with Teletype gear was wholly though work in the Bell system may have never, or only incidentally, encountered this apparatus code system.

Except for some very ancient gear, the "apparatus codes" begin with a letter indicating the "model number family" of the gear. For the Model 28 family (and in fact Model 35 as well), that letter is "L".

For the model 15 family that letter was "B"; for the Model 14 family, it was "F".

Following that was an alphabetic code that, somewhat mnemonically, identified (functionally) the specific unit. For a keyboard, it was "K".

For a typing unit (printer) it was P for a page printer, if the family was page printer oriented (B or L), or a tape printer if the family was tape oriented (F).

But if the family was page-printer oriented, then for the tape printer it was TP.  (T for "tape".)

For a perforator (mechanical input, usually from a keyboard), the code was PE. If it also printed on the tape (a typing perforator), it was TPE. (T for "typing" - oh, great!.)

For a signal-driven punch (a reperforator), the code was RP. If it printed on the tape (a typing reperforator), the code was PR (P for printing; yes, that is exactly the same thing as "typing". So why not "T"? Well that could be confusing in certain cases.).

For tape reader that sent out a serial teletypewriter signal (a transmitter-distributor, referred to colloquially as a "TD") the code was XD (X for transmit).

If a transmitter-distributor was closely integrated with a typing reperforator (and the transmitter usually had a swinging head so it could send out the last character punched), the consolidated unit had the code RXD. (No letter to tell us that it was typing? No.)

If a transmitter-distributor was closely integrated with a perforator, keyboard-driven, most often non-printing (again, the transmitter usually had a swinging head so it could send out the last character punched), the consolidated unit had the code PEX. (What about the "distributor" function. Well, that was assumed.)

Back to the Bell System notation. A specific configuration Model 28 keyboard known inside Teletype Corporation as, for example (and I am just making these up) LK51B might be known (and indicated on teh nameplate) in teh Bell System as a 28J2.

Items such as cabinets and colors has paint color suffixed, again different between Teletype and the Bell System. The only one I remember just now (maybe) was that the standard green crackle finish for Model 28 items was "AB" in the Teletype coding system and "-40" in the Bell System coding system. (And I may in fact remember that wrong - its been a long time!)

And so on and so forth.

Aren't you glad you asked! Best regards, Doug

Ed,

I think I can give an educated guess, but only from the AP side.

There were one or two TV stations in the North Carolina coverage which had the M-20 service, normally for the newspapers, in addition to the M-15 service, which was the radio wire service.

Bear in mind, I've not really given this a lot of thought for 40 years or so, so I might be a bit hazy.

I am thinking there were at least three slow speed 6-level wire services in the state for the newspapers.  One was the AM cycle, for the morning newspapers, the second was the PM cycle, for the afternoon newspapers.

The third 6-level service, if memory serves me correctly, was loaded with feature stories and expanded news stories which weren't quite as time sensitive as the AM and PM cycles. 

Was there one or more other 6-level services in the North Carolina AP service coverage?  I Just can't remember.

Bottom line, I'd suspect the TV station simply wanted more news than the radio wire could supply, either in volume or depth.