IBM Selectric typewriters as printers? (also 2741)
Curtis Rempel
Hi,
I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
Can anybody help out or provide some web page pointers with
more information? Thanks!
--
Curtis Rempel
OpenVMS Systems Specialist email: cj...@agt.net
"Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I don't think that this is a coincidence."
-- Anonymous (from "The UNIX-Haters Handbook")
Rejnold Byzio
There was a typewiter coupler for IBM typewriters to a HP9100
about 1970. It had a rather strange interface with a really
big connector.
Rejnold Byzio
Brian Abernathy
Curtis Rempel (cj...@agt.net) wrote:
: I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
: were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
: what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
: but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
: BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
: magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
: built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
: units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
: those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
: the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
I bought one of those beasties many years ago. It was neither
'standard' serial or parallel, but instead used a completely
different interface. I had the instructions for building an
interface, but never did put it together. I seem to recall that
the interface consisted of a ton of driver transistors. It has
long since shuffled off this mortal coil.
Bill Harnell
Hi, Curtis;
Curtis Rempel <cj...@agt.net> wrote in article <32A269...@agt.net>...
> Hi,
>
> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
> what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
Not that I'm aware of. I had a couple of 1816s that I designed an interface
for to use on my Altair 8800. Also had a Selectric I/O as well as some dot
matrix printers that were interfaced for the Altair.
Unfortunately, all of those interfaces were built on S-100 cards and they
are long gone. I just chucked out the schematics and printed circuit board
films a month or so ago.
In any event, interfacing them wasn't easy - required some mods to the cams
and circuit breakers that controlled the electrics. The I/O was more
difficult than the 1816 to modify as the 1816 had no keyboard, just the
printing mechanisms, which made it easier to do.
They were one heck of a lot faster than my ASR-32 and 33 but cantankerous
as hell!
--
Bill Harnell [bha...@adss.on.ca]
===============================================
> but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
> BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
> magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
> built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
> units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
> those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
> the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
>
Paul Wexelblat
Curtis Rempel wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface.
<snip>
In (about) 1960, DEC shipped the PDP-1
The PDP-1 used an IBM electric typewriter as console terminal
This was the model prior to the Selectric, (still had keys - no
typeball). It was called a "Soroban" which was, I believe the name of
the company that built the computer interface.
PDP-1'rs:
TYI (IOT 0004) read the right 6 bits into the IO register from the
typewriter buffer (Flag 1 set on activity)
TYO (IOT 3) Print right 6 bits of IO
Concise code (I think TYI clears the other 12 bits, TYO does not, I'm
sure)
NOTE: Early color I/O
Since the IBM machine used one of those old 2 color ribbons. there were
2 codes (don't remember which :-> ) that did a black shift and a red
shift (but only when running near warp speed :-> ).
No overprint, return was CRLF
PS, (another thread) There was no "backslash" on this terminal.
Babylon (Ray)
On Sun, 1 Dec 1996, Curtis Rempel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
> what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
> but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
> BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
> magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
> built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
> units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
> those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
> the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
>
> Can anybody help out or provide some web page pointers with
> more information? Thanks!
>
I have seen several of these "printers" in surplus stores over the years.
Seems what you did is use a port out of the computer (sometimes a custom
board in the computer that acted at a port) that would drive trasistors
that would drive solinoids to pull the appropriate levers in the Selectic
at the right times. All of the timing, ASCII to Selectic code
conversion, and handshaking (is the CR done yet?) was done in software
that was "widged" into the OS.
I worked for a non-profit oragnisation for a while. They had an early
(very early) IBM dedicated word processor, I got assigned to repair it (I
don't remember what the model was). This thing used a modified IBM
Selectic (modified by IBM) to input text and to later type it out and a
box (relay brain) about 4 foot tall by 3 by 2 feet with a very thick cable
to tie the two together. It was 99% relay based. The only solid state
parts in it were a dozen or so transistors that acted as amplifiers to
read magnetic tape (were douments were stored). It had about 50 relays
total. It had 2 tape drives - one for normal storage and one to hold
addresses for a mail merge. This way you could have "personally addressed"
form letters.
It could "address" (find) up to 99 documents on tape. You would set to
one's and the ten's knobs and press "go" (or search or some such). It
would then do a rewind then do a fast forward counting each document on
the tape until it found the number you were looking for. After than it
would buzz the tape drive for about 3 seconds something awfal to tell you
that it found the document. If you had the covers off you would watch the
IBM relays count up in binary looking for the document - COOL!
It could type at a max rate of 15 cps (the max of the Selectic). The
Selectric had a tall gray bottom to house all of the solinoids and
encoding switches. It was intended to be placed in a Selectic shaped
hole in a special IBM desk. This way the big gray bottom would be in the
desk.
It didn't use EBCDIC or ASCII codes - it used Selectic "tilt & rotate"
codes. (Being a "closed" system it didn't need to be compatible with
anything else, hence it didn't need ASCII or EBCDIC codes.)
It was a really cool thing to watch - watching the lights on the tape
drvie / relay brain flash and the Seletric ball running like crazy <grin>.
It think IBM later replaced that model with a (more) solid state system
that used magnetic cards to store documents on. I think they called it a
"Mag Card document" somthing-or-another...
Come to think of it, 8 or 9 years ago, I went to a computer show and the
IBM both had a Selectic printer. This thing had all of the solinoids to
run the Selectic ball *on* the selectic carrage - thereby making the machine
much more compact. I think ii had an ASCII serial interface as I recall.
On another subject: I had an electic typerwriter (no Selectic ball) that
had a paper tape reader and punch one time. It weighted about 120 pounds!
I picked it up for all of $0.50 at an auction. This was a "Flexowriter"
by Singer/Frienden. It was a very early attempt at a document storage
system. I managed to connect transistors to the solinoids and connect it
the "user port" of my VIC20. I got it to print with a program in BASIC,
but at the time I didn't have the skill to put it into the OS.
Babylon (Ray)
Lon Stowell
>> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
>> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
>> what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
>> but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
>> BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
>> magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
>> built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
>> units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
>> those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
>> the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
I don't remember any IBM model that provided the ASCII interface
to the Selectric.
The 2740 and 2741 indeed spoke the BCD "B,A,8,4,2,1" code which
was pretty simple to translate into the Selectric's Tilt/Rotate
code.
There were dozens of fleabit smaller terminal vendors though who
offered other character set interfaces to the Selectric that spoke
ASCII, including one of my former employers. The ASCII
capability became quite common right during the demise of the
Selectric (as the Diablo's crucified them) since many companies
got rid of the Selectric Keyboard (the world's best ever keyboard)
and used standard electronic models, most of which had an ASCII
interface.
The Selectric that IBM and others used in computers was really
the "I/O Keyboardless printer". The IBM ones had formidable
solenoids built right into the frame. Some other vendors
sorta tacked on solenoid kits with varying results.
The original Selectric I/O printer was pretty rugged, the old
ones with the stamped supports behind the carriage. The later
units with the threaded rod frames were infamous for poor
quality of parts and adjustment right out of the Itty Bitty
factory.
If you are not mechanically adept, avoid the Selectric. Therre
is one clearance in that thing that has a tolerance of less
than one-half thousandth of an inch.... You will need a good
set of feeler guages as well as the old IBM "hex and fluted
key toolset" to work on one (along with a degree wheel and a
spare set of tilt/rotate tapes, a dogbone, a type ball and
possibly a good selection of wrap clutches along with all of
the springs. I HAVE fixed Selectrics with rubber bands in
dire emergency, but you really need to worry about the exact
number of turns in those springs as well as their color code
to keep a Selectric at all reliable. You'll also need some
blue or green LocTite and a collection of those little
!@!@#$ fluted-key set screws.
>It could type at a max rate of 15 cps (the max of the Selectic). The
134.5 Baud with BCD to be precise. The rate was 14.7 cps unless
you had multiple spaces in which case the camming effect would
raise it to just about 15 cps.
Russell Kegley
While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
playing tricks on me, or does anyone else remember them? I'd love to
hear about anyone's experience with them, too, since they seemed (even
at that time!) like such a horrible kludge.
Russell Kegley
Russell....@lmtas.lmco.com
All opinions are mine, and do not reflect the position of Lockheed
Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems.
Joe Morris
Paul Wexelblat <w...@concentric.net> writes:
>Curtis Rempel wrote:
>> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
>> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface.
>In (about) 1960, DEC shipped the PDP-1
>The PDP-1 used an IBM electric typewriter as console terminal
>This was the model prior to the Selectric, (still had keys - no
>typeball). It was called a "Soroban" which was, I believe the name of
>the company that built the computer interface.
IIRC the PDP-1 typewriter was the IBM "Executive" model, the same one
that was used as the console of the 1620 model I. I don't recall having
heard it referred to as a "Soroban" but it's certainly possible that
others used that name for it (and I may be misremembering -- it *has*
been 33 years since I last used a PDP-1...)
>PDP-1'rs:
>TYI (IOT 0004) read the right 6 bits into the IO register from the
>typewriter buffer (Flag 1 set on activity)
The comment above about "flag 1 set on activity" doesn't make it
clear that the keyboard of the console typewriter was never locked.
You could strike a key at any time; whenever you did so the hardware
set Program Flag 1 (in mainframe terms, "Sense Light 1"). A program
that was using PF1 for its own purposes could be broken if a user
hit a typewriter key and caused PF1 to be set when the program
expected it to be cleared.
It was also a good way to irritate SpaceWar players. After the first
DEC drum was installed (32 tracks of 4K words each!) someone added code
to SpaceWar to allow it to invoke DDT by pressing any key on the
typewriter; when this was detected memory was rolled out to one
of the drum tracks and DDT loaded -- obviously stopping the game.
Nonplayers who did this when a hot dogfight was in progress were not
particularly popular.
The typewriter mechanism was standard in that striking a key always
caused the corresponding local action; the program didn't have to
worry about echoing the user's keystrokes (and couldn't suppress
the echo even if it was desirable).
>TYO (IOT 3) Print right 6 bits of IO
>Concise code (I think TYI clears the other 12 bits, TYO does not, I'm
>sure)
>NOTE: Early color I/O
>Since the IBM machine used one of those old 2 color ribbons. there were
>2 codes (don't remember which :-> ) that did a black shift and a red
>shift (but only when running near warp speed :-> ).
I can't put my hands on the cheat sheet for the FIO-DEC character
set (it ain't ASCII), but I did find my source list for MACRO (the
assembler for the PDP-1) and found the place in the second pass where
it's outputting the symbol table to the typewriter with color changes
for different lines. Red is (octal) 35; black is 34 (shift-insensitive).
There was no key on the console typewriter for ribbon color; setting
the ribbon color was an output-only action for the typewriter.
>No overprint, return was CRLF
You could overprint by using <BS>, octal 75. Also, four of the
characters (overbar, underscore, middle dot, and vertical bar)
were nonspacing so you could use them to generate doublestrike
characters on the typewriter.
>PS, (another thread) There was no "backslash" on this terminal.
but there were several odd characters in the FIO-DEC character
set such as the middle dot, the logic symbol "implies" (uppercase
"U" on it side with the opening to the left), and the "multiply"
symbol (but no asterisk). I've long suspected that the character
set was determined by whatever was on the Flexowriters that
DEC was able to scrounge up while the PDP-1 was being developed.
(This *is* pure speculation; facts in rebuttal are welcome.)
Joe Morris / MITRE
Charles Ader
Curtis Rempel (cj...@agt.net) wrote:
> Hi,
> I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
> what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
> but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
> BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
> magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
> built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
> units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
> those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
> the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
> Can anybody help out or provide some web page pointers with
> more information? Thanks!
In the late 70's there was a kit that could be attached to
and office selectric that turned in into a computer printer.
The kit was a mechanical nightmare to install. I did three
while working for a computer store in California. They were
impossible to keep running because the office selectric was
not designed to take the constant typing.
A compay called Anderson/Jacobson made a line of ASCII, RS232
terminals built arround an I/O slectric mechanism. These were
a great printer but they were big and heavy. I had one for a
while but it was just too slow for what I needed at the time.
Still have some of the type balls arround here someplace.
Charles.
Joe Morris
Russell Kegley <Russell....@lmtas.lmco.com> writes:
>While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
>beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
>computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
>playing tricks on me, or does anyone else remember them? I'd love to
>hear about anyone's experience with them, too, since they seemed (even
>at that time!) like such a horrible kludge.
I never saw a "computer" (as we would use the term today) using
such a mechanism, but in the 1960s that was a quite common device for
data recording in laboratories. You would have some type of data-
generating frame that would have a relatively inexpensive output interface
to the "magic fingers" (at least that's what we called them), which would
be clamped over the top of a normal office Selectric typewriter.
I think I've seen adapters that supported the entire keyboard, but the
ones I used in nuclear experiments had ... um, lessee now ... solenoids
over the ten digits, period, minus, tab, and carriage return keys.
You couldn't get fancy output formats, but as long as someone remembered
to scribble a handwritten reminder on the page saying what experiment on
what date on what testbay was involved (and as long as you made sure that
the ribbon was in good condition, and the paper didn't tear!) you had
the data on a piece of paper from which it could be manually transcribed
as required.
By today's standards the magic fingers would be a kludge, but you're
looking back to the world thirty years in the past. They answered
a specific need, they did so without excessive cost, and they worked
as designed; if they were kludges, so be it...
Joe Morris / MITRE
Kim Pugh
Russell Kegley wrote:
>
> While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
> beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
> computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
> playing tricks on me, or does anyone else remember them? I'd love to
> hear about anyone's experience with them, too, since they seemed (even
> at that time!) like such a horrible kludge.
>
> Russell....@lmtas.lmco.com
>
> All opinions are mine, and do not reflect the position of Lockheed
> Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems.
I remember seeing those in ads, too. And they sold for absurd price,
even for those days.
--
Kim Pugh | DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed are *strictly*
-----------------+ those of the last person I talked to.
k...@telepath.com | *Telepath.com info: 405-755-1990. Login as
guest*
http://www.telepath.com/kim/ |
ftp://ftp.telepath.com/pub/people/kim
Lon Stowell
In article <caderE1...@netcom.com> ca...@netcom.com (Charles Ader) writes:
>
>A compay called Anderson/Jacobson made a line of ASCII, RS232
>terminals built arround an I/O slectric mechanism. These were
>a great printer but they were big and heavy. I had one for a
>while but it was just too slow for what I needed at the time.
>Still have some of the type balls arround here someplace.
>
There were several companies in the 70's making all sorts
of computer terminals with all sorts of protocols available
for the Selectric.
The BETTER ones of these all used the "Selectric I/O Keyboardless
Printer" style Selectric which was designed more for computer
continuous duty than the office models. Of this beastie, there
were two versions, one with a stamped frame over the space and
tab mechanisms behind the carriage and one with threaded steel
rods. One was a piece of true crap, very bad assembly quality
control with very bad piece part quality and finishing.
The other was merely a triumph mechanical engineering over common
sense.
As a computer printer, the Selectric was a very good office
typewriter. I worked for a little flea-bit company that
became quite large overnight when it stopped using the
Selectric and started using the Diablo and Qume daisy printers.
We took several major trucking accounts away from IBM almost
overnight...and our only account that went back to IBM dropped them
a year later and went back to our units. [After a couple
buyouts, that company is now Memorex-Telex, but was named Terminal
Communications at the time.]
Bill Richman
Oh - you mean the "magic fingers" printer interface? (We always used to joke
that they'd make a great programmable massage unit... "Just type 'Up and a
little to the right...'" :) I always wanted one for my IMSAI.
Dr. Peter Kittel
In article <32A67A...@telepath.com> Kim Pugh <k...@telepath.com> writes:
>Russell Kegley wrote:
>>
>> While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
>> beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
>> computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
>> playing tricks on me, or does anyone else remember them?
>
>even for those days.
Yes, such devices existed as commercial products, as well as hardware
projects to build them yourself. I and two of my uni colleagues back
then built such devices for our ball typewriters from Brother. It
was enormous fun, but also not very reliable. I still have mine in
my living room as decoration :-).
--
Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS
Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: pet...@pios.de
Jonathan Smith
I have seen several selectric typewriters that had a parallel interface
for connection to a PC (Selectric III?) As a matter of fact
there's one upstairs now in the secretaries office. I don't think
the interface was installed "from the factory", rather it was a dealer-installedoption. These beasties were popular with businesses that already owned a
typewriter & needed a letter quality output mechanism for their brand new PC.
Brian Abernathy (c...@hpuerci.atl.hp.com) wrote:
: Curtis Rempel (cj...@agt.net) wrote:
: : I am curious as to whether or not any IBM Selectric typewriters
: : were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
: : what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
: : but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
: : BCD or something like that. I remember seeing ads in computer
: : magazines in the late '70's and early '80's for companies that
: : built EBCDIC to ASCII boards or something like that for these
: : units so that PC people could use them as printers. Of course,
: : those companies are long gone but I'm mainly interested in
: : the idea as a hobbyist/experimenter.
: I bought one of those beasties many years ago. It was neither
Babylon (Ray)
On 6 Dec 1996, Dr. Peter Kittel wrote:
> In article <32A67A...@telepath.com> Kim Pugh <k...@telepath.com> writes:
> >Russell Kegley wrote:
> >>
> >> While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
> >> beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
> >> computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
> >> playing tricks on me, or does anyone else remember them?
> >
> >I remember seeing those in ads, too. And they sold for absurd price,
> >even for those days.
>
> Yes, such devices existed as commercial products, as well as hardware
> projects to build them yourself. I and two of my uni colleagues back
> then built such devices for our ball typewriters from Brother. It
> was enormous fun, but also not very reliable. I still have mine in
> my living room as decoration :-).
I remember these. I never saw one in person, but they used to advertise
them all the time in the back of Byte magazine (back when Byte was a cool
magazine!).
Hmmmm... You must have an *intersting* living room <grin>.
Babylon (Ray)
Jill A. Snider
Russell Kegley <Russell....@lmtas.lmco.com> writes:
>While we're on this subject, I remember seeing ads in the mid-70's for a
>beast that would clamp onto a Selectric, then serve as output for a
>computer by actually pressing keys on the keyboard! Is my memory
>hear about anyone's experience with them, too, since they seemed (even
>at that time!) like such a horrible kludge.
I remember those! Oh, I wanted one, for I had access to a Selectric at
work. Didn't Popular Electronics have a construction article as well?
It was the kludginess of it that finally kept me from ordering or building
one for my C-64. (That, and a friend offering me a Star 10X cheap!)
Pat Larkin 74246.1077 "at" compuserve.com
--
Dave
Ever see one based on pneumatics? They used to have a 'magic fingers'
device used for electromagnetic compatibility testing. You put the
typewriter in a anechoic chamber and measure radio frequency emissions
from it. The sweeps are done across a variety of frequencies and a
variety of angles. You don't want an operator having to sit in the
anechoic chamber all day typing (Plus, a typist doesn't type at a
consistent speed). So, they'd clamp this 'magic fingers' device over
the keyboard and type using compressed air. Note that they couldn't
use solenoids in the device since the radio frequency hash generated
by the solenoids would upset the measurements. It was really weird
watching the magic fingers thump along with a whosh of air after each
keystroke.
Dave
Alan Bowler
>> were ever sold with an ASCII parallel/serial interface. If so,
>> what were the models? Also, I'm aware of the IBM 2741 terminal
>> but don't know too much about it other than I believe it spoke
>> BCD or something like that.
The 2741 had a normal RS232 serial interface, but you ran it at
134.5 bits per sec. They did not take either ASCII or EBCDIC,
but had their own 7 bit character set. With 1 stop and 1 start bit
this gave you a dual case terminal that worked at almost 15 characters
per second. (i.e. a lot better than a 10 cps mono case teletype).
The private code set was not a serious problem, you just did a
translate (table lookup) to map between the code set you were
using (ASCII or EBCDIC) and what the terminal needed. This was
usually done in the front end processor, or in the lowest level of
the terminal driver. The application programmer just worked in
ASCII or EBCDIC.
Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879
From article <E29sn...@thinkage.on.ca>,
by atbo...@thinkage.on.ca (Alan Bowler):
>
> The 2741 had a normal RS232 serial interface, but you ran it at
> 134.5 bits per sec. They did not take either ASCII or EBCDIC,
> but had their own 7 bit character set.
Last time I checked, the U of Iowa Surplus outlet had a 2741 sitting on
a shelf between rows of Selectrics. The thing isn't nested in its formica
table, as most of us remember them, but rather, the gasket that fit it into
the table top is high and dry, and it rests on 4 small rubber feet at the
bottom of its case -- the case (below the table top level) is fairly large
compared with a Selectric, presumably to accomodate the solenoids and
keyboard encoder.
I don't know if the unit Surplus is selling has any electronics; that may
have been in a separate enclosure mounted under the Formica table top.
If so, the unit at Surplus is just the printer and keyboard mechanism,
with raw parallel data presented on the ribbon cable that comes out of it.
Doug Jones
jo...@cs.uiowa.edu
gnee...@gmail.com
The other machine that used IBM typebar machines starting with the model 01 was the Friden Flexowriter. Same sort of system but used paper tape like the older teletype machines used to transmit words instead of Morse code.
Andreas Kohlbach
>
> On Monday, December 9, 1996 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Dave wrote:
[...]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is vintage alright. ;-)
--
Andreas
You know you are a redneck if
your christmas tree is still up in february.
southern...@gmail.com
J. Clarke
wrote:
>The best thing that can happen here is to throw the ibm in the closest dumpster
be fun to show the people I work with what APL was like in the early
days.
Quadibloc
printing styles than a Selectric, making one of little _practical_ use, that
just shows that a Selectric belongs in a _museum_, not a dumpster. Well, old
Selectrics are still fairly common, but a 2741 is definitely a museum candidate.
John Savard
durga...@gmail.com
John Levine
>An Wang (Wang Laboratories) made a modification to IBM selectrics so that they could be used as printers on their calculators (and word processor). ...
When I was in grad school in the late 1970s, someone got a thing we
referred to as a Selectric sandwich. You unscrewed the bottom cover
of the typewriter and this device was mounted between the cover and
the rest of it. I don't remember how well or badly it worked.
Around that time cheap daisy wheel mechanisms became available that
were better in every way than Selectric printers, faster, cheaper,
more reliable. Someone built a simple daisy wheel interface to our
Unix PDP-11 that just horizontal and vertical carriage steps and wheel
rotate codes. I wrote a driver that made it look like a tty, with
some minor optimizations to combine strings of white space into a
single motion.
Then I wrote a little pre-filter that would reorder every other line
of text so it printed back and forth which was slightly faster than
returning the carriage at the end of every line. The filter was
called "bou" because I was too lazy to type boustrophedon.
--
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly