[GreenKeys] Model 14 T-D with weird commutator

[jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu]

I can only hazard a guess; I don't know for sure.

Six short segments followed by a very long one would serve 5-unit code at
a baud rate a lot higher than a normal faceplate would give for the same 
motor and gears.  This might have been a way to make a sending device for
an experimental high-speed printer selector when a transmitter for the
speed had not yet been constructed.  And somebody might have thought it 
would be easier to make the modified faceplate than to get a set of gears
that would deliver the high speed with a normal faceplate.  Or maybe the
TD was not capable of the higher speed with a normal faceplate.  An
example of this is that the 14 TD was limited to 75 WPM with a felt 
clutch.  Later ones were fitted with 28-type clutches for operation at
100 WPM.

On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, tony j. podrasky wrote:

> Back in the late '60s I picked up a Model 14 T-D.
> 
> This one had (as I recall) 6 really short bits, followed by a really
> long stop bit. 
>