FRIDAY SURPRISE: Back to the future.

Friday, October 02, 2009 Filed in: Friday Surprise!, My Life, History, Technology

Well, at 110 baud, it's a slow trip!

33asrtty

This Teletype is identical to the one I used in high school to access a computer timeshare system. Back in the mid-'70s, practical personal computers were still a ways off, and even minicomputers (like the DEC PDP-11) were far too expensive for most high schools to purchase. The affordable way to computer power was to buy a subscription to time on a mainframe computer, and dial in on their telephone lines.

Our school was out in the boonies (no, seriously, we were) and we linked to a computer located in Portland (OR). We used the ASR-33 above to interact with the computer. The dial on the right was used to call one of the access numbers; if it was busy, we tried the next one.

As I recall, we had three numbers on which we had access, and if all three of them were busy (other users of the service), we had to wait until a line was free. For those who have grown up never having used a rotary phone, there was no such thing as speed dial or automatic redial!

We could use the paper tape reader on the left of the machine to feed in a program, or to save a program from the computer's memory. At the blazing speed of 10 characters per second, it took a LONG time to feed in a program - sometimes 30 minutes or more. We had a couple of large filing cabinets full of paper tape rolls, programs that other students had written or ones which the company supplied to us.

The computer output was printed on the typewriter in the center of the console. It used a roll of paper that was about 8" wide, and in our case was a dull yellow color.

Yes, I'm old, but your turn is coming, kids - someday your children will be laughing at the idea of your beloved iPod!

More pics of the ASR-33
Wikipedia entry on the TeleType ASR-33
What is a TeleType, anyhow?
The history of TeleType

-=[ Grant ]=-

Tags:

© 2011 Grant Cunningham Click to email me!