[GreenKeys] Re: Model 29 History

[Don Robert House]

Thanks a million for this history Ben,

You will have to come over and see the last machines of the TELETYPE 
marke in my garage.  I think I am the only one left with a Model 45 
printer!

Give me a call when you get a minute.  Sometime soon Jim Haynes is 
supposed to be in our area, it would be nice to get together.
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Don R. House
4716 Patty Lane, Ringwood, IL 60072
Tel: 815-653-0683
FAX: 815-653-0684
*****************************************
North American Data Communications Dept. of CMA
URL: http://www.nadcomm.org
Computer Museum of America (CMA)
URL: http://www.computer-museum.org


Don

>The AOL server lost your inquiry regarding the Model 29, but I 
>recall you were looking for some history, so here goes.
>
>I started at Teletype in 1960, and that was before ASCII.  As you 
>know, the biggest problem with Baudot code was the FIGS-LTRS shift, 
>which slowed things down and used a 3-row keyboard.  The military 
>and others had been asking for a 4-row keyboard for some time, and 
>the Model 29 was the answer at the moment.
>
>The Model 29 was styled just like the Model 28, but used one inch 
>wide 8-level paper tape.  The big technical achievement was a front 
>plate which would go immediately from a letter to a number and back. 
>There were some shift links on the front plate which would break 
>with extended use, but nevertheless the Model 29 was good enough for 
>service.  The same typing unit went on to be called the Model 35 
>with a different type box and some other minor modifications.
>
>There were two markets for the Model 29.  The first was the 
>military, and their units had Fieldata code.  I never got into that 
>code, and I don't think the military bought all that many.  The 
>other market was for as a console for main frame computers, and we 
>sold a bunch to the likes of GE, RCA, Univac, Honeywell, etc.   The 
>reason they bought the Teletype machine was because IBM was driving 
>its computers with heavy duty IBM typewriters and IBM punched card 
>equipment, and their competitors would rather die than ship a 
>machine with an IBM typewriter as the console.  Although Friden had 
>a similar heavy duty typewriter, Teletype was much better known and 
>their equipment was more rugged.
>
>The Model 29 headed for data processing ran on the Extended Binary 
>Coded Decimal Interchange Code, or EBCDIC.  This was a pure IBM 
>code, and "extended" meant that it included characters for both 
>upper and lower cases, although the lower case letters were never 
>implemented by Teletype.   The first on-line multipoint Teletype 
>circuit run by a computer was the Westinghouse "whistle" system, 
>with an RCA computer in Pittsburgh driving the whole show.  The 
>console printers there were Model 29's; I don't know whether the 
>machines on the circuits across the country were 28's or 29's.
>
>I mentioned Friden, and they were pushing a concept called 
>"Integrated Data Processing" (IDP) in which paper program tapes were 
>used to type repetitive letters and forms, with an output tape 
>capturing the data for subsequent processing.  The Model 29 IDP set 
>was specifically designed to go after this market.  We were afraid 
>that Friden was going to get all of what looked like a juicy new 
>market opportunity.
>
>The Model 29 IDP set looked like a conventional ASR of the day, 
>except that there were two tape readers.  I worked on a system for 
>the Western Electric works in Kansas City, and its application was 
>for Purchasing and Receiving.  When a purchase order form was 
>processed, a loop of tape, containing a program, was in one of the 
>readers.  When the operator stepped on a foot pedal, it started up 
>and printed in fixed stuff like the "bill to" and "ship to" 
>addresses.  The current date could, if you wanted to, be printed 
>from another loop of tape in the other reader made up on a daily 
>basis.
>
>When it was time for the "items" in the purchase order, the reader 
>would stop so that the operator could type them in by hand.  When 
>finished, the operator would step on the pedal and the program tape 
>would complete the form.  Key factor:  while all this was going on, 
>the reperforator on the keyboard was punching out selected data from 
>the PO, and this tape went with receiving's copy of the PO in a 
>special pouch which included a plastic lined pocket for the tape so 
>the oil would not seep through.
>
>Later, with the ordered stuff arrived in Receiving, the clerk would 
>get out the original form and put the data tape in the second 
>reader.  With a program loop tape in the first reader, the process 
>was repeated, with the receiving clerk adding whatever information 
>was needed when the program tape would stop for same.  When the 
>job was done, the new tape punched by the reperf at the Receiving 
>Department went to Accounting, where it went into some sort of 
>computer to pay the bill for the shipment.
>
>The big problem here was legal and political.  The 1956 
>(1953?) Consent Decree said that the Bell System must confine its 
>stuff to "common carrier communications, and services incidental 
>thereto."   This meant, in plain English, that the Bell System was 
>to keep the hell out of data processing.  It was the direct result 
>of the BSDP (Bell System Data Processing) project at Bell Labs, in 
>which AT&T was fixing to build and market a main frame number 
>cruncher targeted directly at IBM and Univac.  The Consent 
>Decree changed the course of the BSDP project into a different 
>direction, and it finally became the main gizmo driving the 1ESS.
>
>But when you read the Consent Decree, how can you justify the Bell 
>System building Teletype machines as computer consoles?   The trick 
>was twofold.  First, they were fundamentally start-stop telegraphic 
>communications machines, vs. the Friden Flexowriter which was a 
>parallel transmission office machine.  Second, the Teletype Model 29 
>was not allowed to do arithmetic functions.   That is, it could not 
>total up a column and print the results automatically.   Doing so 
>would constitute data processing.  We lost lots of business to 
>Friden, who could not only do arithmetic functions, but also 
>type lower case.
>
>This concern not to be perceived as doing data processing was so 
>strong that for several years the Touch Tone dials had only ten 
>digits, without the * and # keys which are standard today.  The fear 
>was that someone at the Justice Department would view a phone with 
>the 12 key pad including the * and # as a data terminal, being 
>marketed in competition with some early low grade key pad terminals 
>made by IBM.   Western Electric made 16-key dials for Autovon, but 
>the POTS user only got ten keys.
>
>The ASCII was a neat end run around the data processing issue, since 
>the code was clearly designed for "information interchange", which 
>suggests communications.  Teletype recoded the Model 29 to run on 
>ASCII, and called in Henry Dreyfuss to restyle the case, and the 
>Model 35 was born.  The Model 29 became instantly obsolete.
>
>So the Model 29 only ran for a couple of years, 1961-1963.  That PO 
>system in Kansas City, which was provided by Southwestern Bell, ran 
>at least until 1970, because I got occasional phone calls from the 
>technician about it, even after I left Teletype in 1969.
>
>A final technical note.  The one inch tape included even parity, and 
>they never made a printing reperforator nor a tape printer for the 
>Model 29.   The case never said "Model 29" on it, and the only way 
>to quickly tell if a "Model 28" is just that or a Model 29 is to 
>look at the keyboard.  The 4-row keyboard was a Model 29.=
>
>Ben Stephens=
>
>
>


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