[GreenKeys] The Old and The New

[gil at baudot.net]

Hi folks:

> This is an age wherein we should really roll with the flow of times and
> technology, and use the best of all worlds in order to attain a goal.

Yeah, I gotta second that one.  We are all here on greenkeys because we
love these heavy, noisy, smelly, teletype machines.  Problem is, what
to do with them after we collect and restore them.  Well, a local loop
of a couple machines only gets you so far (though my 5- and 6-year-old
kids can enjoy that for hours).  Can hook 'em up to a computer to print
out test pages or art pics, which is most satisfying, but still only
solitary fun.  Can hook 'em up to a TU and receiver and look for
signals, but there's not much out there these days.  But now the
internet offers us the chance to actually get a world-wide network of
machines talking -- really frickin' cool, IMHO!

I have been the greenkeys moderator for a few years now.  Currently we
have about 280 members;  not a large group to begin with, though we
have been growing slowly.  When I get time, I pester purchasers on
ebay, and occassionally find new folks who join greenkeys -- anyone
buying a machine or manual is a good candidate.  But I doubt we will
ever be a large group.  However, in the last month, the volume of
greenkeys posts has risen considerably, many from new folks.  It is
great to see increasing interest.

I am enjoying the rtty discussions, since I was never a part of that
era.  I'm not even a ham;  I originally got invloved in greenkeys
because I wanted to find a 33 like the one I used in college
programming classes.  I finally got one, and love it, but I found the
baudot machines to be even more intriguing, and, well, I still have not
stopped collecting and fixing machines of every vintage.  Just something
about them (that the spouse will never understand).

But I am always coming back to the same question: what to do with the
machines?  Well, we have a lot of good things going on these days:

1)  Bill Bytheway's RTTYArt program:  A wonderful tool for reading and
writing paper tape art (and other) files.  If you have a stash of paper
tapes, especially historical art files, you really need to read them to
disk files, and send them to Bill for inclusion in the archive on
rtty.com.  Let me reiterate an offer I made previously:  I will loan
you a 100-wpm 28TD for this very purpose.  It is small and light to
ship, and plugs right into a computer com port to talk to RTTYArt.  If
your computer only has a usb port, I'll loan you a converter as well. 
I'll pay shipping to you, you pay shipping back (or to the next guy).

2)  Bill Buzbee's HeavyMetal program:  a cool program, recently updated
to run under XP, which pulls news feeds, weather reports, and other
stuff off the internet, and prints it out on your tty (via a
232-to-loop converter).  When it first came out, I used it with my M15,
and sent perhaps the first email actually typed on a tty keyboard.

3)  George's internet audio project:  you need a TU to use this with
your tty, but this whole concept is very exciting.  Yeah, it's not
radio, but it allows everyone to listen in to a broadcast, and drive
real hardware.  If George and Bytheway manage to make this interactive,
we will have a world-wide tty network!  Even if that proves too
daunting, the internet broadcast is great.  Another non-audio
possibilty is a chat room.

4)  Roy and gang's HoffNet work:  it is tough to get enough critical
mass to get a radio network operational, but it may still happen,
especially since lots of folks have dusted off their TUs and machines
to try the internet feed.  Plus, the autostart and selcal standards
developed for HoffNet may be useful for an interactive internet
channel.

Well I'll stop ranting.  Been sick, haven't slept well in days, and the
cat is wondering why I am sitting in front of the fire at 3 in the
morning with the laptop on a stool.  Maybe I'll get a good night's
sleep tomorrow...

gil