Re: Digest for vietnam-old-hacks@googlegroups.com - 2 updates in 1 topic

[Dawson]

Arnold Isaacs <ari...@gmail.com>: Apr 17 09:58AM -0400 As I recall there was no public telex service in Saigon but AP and maybe other wire services had telex connections in their bureaus, available to other clients... Skip

Negative. Wire services and a few others had radio-teletype services through the PTT which had no Telex (not 'telex').

UPI had a couple of dozen agreements/contracts to transmit copy. The two largest were Mainichi and Kyodo. We even had Rolling Stone when Hunter Thompson rolled through on his disastrous Vietnam tour but we kept two full-time employees busy sending our copy and others' for years. We handled incoming, usually specific messages for correspondents..

All of us knew how to use and even to read/correct the paper tapes that actually powered the machines at full speed..

By 1975, I'm pretty sure we all had 66 wpm machines clacking away (as did PTT itsownself) but for several years it was half-speed. On Day Final, our Mr. Duc worked for a while but he was gone by noon and the conquerors turned off all machines and phones by then, anyhow.. A few embassies had their own comms behind locked doors; the commies never braced them on it. The Japanese were helpful at times, bless them.

I still miss the background noise of teletype machines. After the end, I liberated a spiffy radio and full-speed teletype machine that fell off a truck in Bangkok, threw up a few aerials and monitored half a dozen "news" channels including VNA and Kampuchea -- very useful, at the time.

a.d. 73

[Donald Kirk]

Positive. Actually, I filed a ton of stuff via UPI for assorted outlets for years -- not just from Saigon but most especially from Tokyo, also Hong Kong, Bangkok and elsewhere. Ditto via Reuters. Occasionally via AP..UPI made quite a profitable sideline off numerous accounts.

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[Jim Laurie]

Hello all - fascinating recollections about Saigon, telex, or teletype.

Is there a definition issue here ?   Are teleprinters, teletypewriters, teletypes or TTY the same as Telex machines?  (or did one use the old perforated tape and the other provide direct transmission paper to paper?

I am terrible at technology then and now.)

On April 30, 1975 after 1035a, I sat at what I called a 'telex machine' at the NBC office in the Eden building next to AP.  I pounded away at short pieces on Communist troops entering Saigon.  I lost my last radio voice circuit to NBC New York at about 1030a during which I filed 'Big Minh's' surrender address. 

A little after noon, someone on the other end of my line at the PTT came on the "telex machine" and told me he had been ordered to shut me down.  "...ending transmission." he said. "bon chance."  I still have the faded red-ink printout message in my files.  End of 'telex' transmissions.

If you visit the basement of the old Presidential palace as I did two years ago...  you will find a collection

of machines - see pics attached.  It is unclear to me if these were part of President Thieu's communications network or were gathered up by the Communists from various places and stored in the basement after the fall.

Are these "telex" machines?

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[Carl Robinson]

At AP, we had dedicated lines -- we called 'em teletypes -- to NY for outgoing and incoming traffic which, of course, ran past PTT who then pulled the plug on the 30th of April.   Those were not rpt not Telex machines which we did not have but PTT might have used.   I believe NBC also its own service wire -- another expression we used -- next door to us.   And, yes, we did send out subscriber copy for its correspondents, but I don't believe as many of UPI and Reuters.  

So, what's the argument about again? 

Cheers,

Carl

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[Jim Laurie]

No arguments I think...Carl.  Just recollections sparked by Skip's mention of a new book called

"Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of Saigon" a book by Elisa Tamarkin which will be published on April 28th -  Whatever the title... the book looks worth a read...  cheers

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[Donald Kirk]

Big difference between telex and teletype was  you could "talk" -- i.e.message -- back and forth on the former. Not on the latter, over which copy clattered out as written and edited. No back, talk from the other end. Those were definitely telex machines in the telex center that I mentioned. On the ground level, across Tu Do from the Caravelle, with the door opening on the main drag facing the huge statue of the soldier and the Opera House.

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[Arnold Isaacs]

Don is right and my memory was faulty. Yes there was a small telex office diagonally across from the Continental Palace, where I sometimes filed my copy (like Don, sometimes punching the tape myself). 

Isn't the difference between telex and teletype that telex messages are addressed to a specific receiver, like a telephone call, while teletype goes out to a whole network, e.g. AP or Reuters subscribers...?

Skip   

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[Donald Kirk]

Yes, that's a crucial distinction. Thanks

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[Carl Robinson]

Yes, so the 'argument' was in the very title of Bob Tamarkin's step-daughter's book Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of Saigon  and Al Dawson's wondering how that was possible as he thought non-agency folks filed through UPI or AP and not by telex.   But turns out there was one in the press centre across from the Caravelle, as Don Kirk points out, although I wasn't aware of that as at AP we had a dedicated 'service wire' direct to NY -- as UPI and Reuters and the nets also had -- for back and forth traffic, including outgoing stories.  (Second teletype, as these were called, was for the World Wire which carried incoming news and our edited stories from NY.)   So, Bob -- whom I did not know -- was using a Telex for his stories out of Saigon and so that title is correct.   Certainly sounds better than via AP or whoever.

Cheers, everyone.

Carl

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