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Wiring A Vintage Teletype To The Internet 197
An anonymous reader writes "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? If so, this article at LinuxDevices.com is just what you've been looking for. Henry Minsky has caught the Mini-ITX motherboard bug big-time, arguing that the tiny, yet full-featured boards can now compete favorably with more traditional embedded platforms." Minsky explains that: "Messages and alerts could be printed to the teletype automatically from remote locations (such as our Yahoo calendar), while a user could send messages and access services such as weather and news headlines from the teletype keyboard."
Once again... (Score:5, Funny)
No.
Re:Once again... (Score:3, Funny)
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... (Score:2)
Re:Once again... (Score:1, Funny)
More SCO!
Better SCO!
Faster SCO!
SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO, SCO
SCO, wonderful SCO...
Re:Once again... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Once again... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm too busy overclocking my Babbage Engine. More Steam!!
Blast it! That cooling fan is too large!
Re:Once again... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Once again... (Score:2)
Teletype printouts (Score:1)
Conceivably, it seems one of these machines would chew through a paper roll or two in a short time...
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
Store teletype in a remote location
Problem solved.
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
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.
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
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.
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
Don't forget about this little tidbit:
It's important that they make noise (Score:2, Funny)
That means the older the better.
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
Why, because...
Re:Teletype printouts (Score:2)
Ahh, teletypes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2, Informative)
The Computer Museum [mos.org] in Boston closed several years ago, but apparently their hardware went to the Computer History Museum [computerhistory.org].
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:1)
Well I loved that book, but I can't say I've ever "really really lusted" over a teletype...
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Bell and other sounds ideal for alerts (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:1)
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.
Patterns with punched paper tape (Score:5, Funny)
1 o.o.o.o
2
3 o.o.o.o
4
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
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2)
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2)
I'm not really that old.
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2)
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
Re:Ahh, teletypes. (Score:2)
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. (Score:2)
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
So Minsky... did it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So Minsky... did it work? (Score:3, Informative)
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? (Score:2)
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'
Re:So Minsky... did it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wps.com]. Check it out. I used his ASCII-baudot conversion routines.
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
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 s
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
A printer is output only, this device is input and output...
Re:Why? (Score:2)
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.
Not as useful as all that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Running the HTTP server on the teletype... (Score:4, Interesting)
Still, it would be nice to see if something like Contiki [dunkels.com] could be used for this beast as well.
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... (Score:2, Informative)
You might wanna use a Crystal Semiconductor CS-8900A [tihlde.org] 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
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... (Score:2)
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 "t
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... (Score:2)
Re:Running the HTTP server on the teletype... (Score:3, Interesting)
ASCII Quake!! (Score:4, Funny)
I had a similar idea (Score:2, Interesting)
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
DECwriter II (Score:2)
Re:I had a similar idea (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
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), b
Once again: (Score:5, Funny)
(nervously) Who sent you?
sad. (Score:1)
oh well, time to start looking for a vt-52 I guess.
Re:sad. (Score:1)
Re:sad. (Score:2)
Re:sad. (Score:2)
Re:sad. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Somewhat related (Score:1, Interesting)
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?
Re:Somewhat related (Score:1)
Re:Somewhat related (Score:2)
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.
Actually I do have one (Score:4, Funny)
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!
No, you don't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, you don't (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
5 bit serial AI (Score:1, Funny)
This project coupled with the authors last name, brings new meaning to "artificial intelligence".
Reliability (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
ttyf? d? m? (Score:1)
er (Score:1)
Re:er (Score:2)
From /etc/termcap (Score:4, Interesting)
#
# 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:\
tty37|model 37 teletype:\
Do you see what I'm seeing? (Score:3, Funny)
Already done before! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Already done before! (Score:2)
They've been around for a couple decades, at least.
Telex? (Score:4, 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."
Links (Score:2)
EPIA V image [viavpsd.com]
EPIA M manual [viavpsd.com] (12M - slow download)
VIA EPIA M Mainboard description [viavpsd.com]
EPIA M image [viavpsd.com]
EPIA M manual [viavpsd.com] (7.12M - slow download)
mini-itx.com - bunch of other similar project [mini-itx.com]
Stock tickers (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, inputting commands is rather trickier...
can acoustic couplers be far behind? (Score:2)
Mechnical ethernet interface (Score:2)
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 [mit.edu]
Re:Syslog to display? Sure. (Score:2)
Here's a real computer TTY terminal (Score:2)
(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!)
Teletypes (Score:3, Insightful)
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. (Score:2, Interesting)
DIsappointed (Score:2)
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 ra
Re:DIsappointed (Score:2)
The weather info comes from MIT's weather server [mit.edu] which still formats the weather service info as teletype output.
Ask a Ham! (Score:2)
Archaic technology has already been discussed in a recent Slashdot thread [slashdot.org]
Re:Ask a Ham! (Score:3, Informative)
The example with the teletype was really just a way of contrasting an app that previously would
Amazing (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Amazing (Score:2)
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 print
Wierd priorities (Score:2)
A real geek would whip up a vacuum tube interface, something I suspect more than one had in real life.
Re:Wierd priorities (Score:2)
Re:Wierd priorities (Score:2)
Video attachment (Score:2)
http://members.fortunecity.com/drg45nzp
We're all in this together!
Trade Friden calculator for 5-level TTY? (Score:2)
I might trade for Friden calculators, though.
Been there, done that (Score:3, Funny)
The pop-up ads were hell.
So I'm going to be using an Altair 8800 front panel for web surfing, instead.
Teletypes???? (Score:2)
Slashdotters beware...
Re:See, its sad when... (Score:1)
Even a quick zoom in Gimp could not clarify it.
Re:Wiring a Teletype... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wiring a Teletype... (Score:2)
Re:Old hardware (Score:2)
Re:I just tried to post in morse message response (Score:2)
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...