[GreenKeys] Model 15 60 WPM Gears Wanted

[H.E.Robert]

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> I believe it came out of a telco CO, but am not entirely positive on 
> that.  The platen shows a lot of wear in the first 10-15 characters of 
> each line.  I am wondering if it was maybe a trouble recorder on a 
> crossbar switch?  It also has a red ribbon in it, if that helps point 
> to its former use.
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> It is definitely out of Bell System service as it has the wood table, 
> Western Electric KS-series 120V DC power supply on the lower shelf, 
> small paper circuit diagram stuck behind where the PS sits showing 
> connections to the line... and the line cord is still attached to the 
> small barrier-block style Western Electric terminals with three 
> terminals on the block.  The red and black-plugged signal wires from 
> the 15 plug into a jack under the table which is wired to the line 
> cord and terminal blocks.
>
> Doug, KA2WFT 

> My offices, in the 70's anyway had 28 RO's, LIT work though.  All the 
> offices i went into in the 70's in Kansas had 28's.  ONly 15's i ran 
> into were at the local (in my town) radio station which was tied to 
> the AP news line.  That's not to say that 15's weren't used for LIT 
> work, just that i didn't have them in my offices.  That's how i got 
> into TTY repair work.
>
> larry
> W0OGH 


Doug, Larry, and gang,

That platen wear sure sounds like a LIT print-out, as it usually was 
just the Central Office Equipment "address", for lack of a better term. 
As I said, I only saw it in use for step by step or SXS technology based 
on the Strowger concepts.  The line insulation test in a #5 Xbar, were 
referred to as ALIT, they added "Automated", and yes those were all good 
ole M28's.  I can't speak to the #1Xbar, or the "Panel" technologies, 
but they may have used M15's as well, based on the years they were put 
into service.

One interesting or strange fact, is that in the mid 70's, the 
Labs/Western Electric came up with an ALIT interface to a M35 RO stand 
alone perforator.  The 5Xbar "Markers" generated an 8 level code at 110 
baud, (really 5 level Baudot, with the additional bits being blank, or 
null filled.  The resulting tape was meaningless, and would print 
garbage, as you can imagine on a M35-ASR.  But, here is the strange 
part,  that tape was feed into the M35-ASR's tape reader "backwards", 
tail end first, and read by a remote computer, probably a DEC PDP-11, in 
half duplex mode, because the "garbage" characters echoing back would 
send the M35's stunt box into convulsions.  After a few minutes, the 
computer would spit back a list of phone numbers that failed the ALIT tests!

Got to give those Bell Labs guys credit for thinking "outside the box" 
on this one!

Just Bob!

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