[GreenKeys] Teletype ASR33 - approximate date of introduction:1963

[Doug Alderdice]

At 03:38 PM 7/11/2008 -0500, Jim Haynes wrote:
>Another major unforseen use of the M33 was as a computer time sharing
>terminal.  Lots of these saw very heavy use, especially in education.

Indeed that was my interface for my very first encounter with a computer 
back around 1977 or 1978.  My folks enrolled me in a Saturday morning 
extracurricular "camp" deal that was run by one of the local private 
schools, and one of the sessions was computers.  They had, as I recall, a 
PDP/11 with four or five ASR 33s attached to it.  The class consisted of 
typing up BASIC PRINT commands so when you typed "RUN" the thing spit back 
whatever you put in the print statements.  A very high-tech (for the time) 
encounter for a middle schooler... how times have changed with the 
preschoolers now who can surf the web.

Later, in the (public) high school I attended (79-82), I once again had 
contact with an ASR 33 that was attached to a PDP8/e that the school had in 
the electronics lab.  I only used that occasionally as the courses I was in 
were done on the System/360 upstairs... punch card city writing programs in 
FORTRAN on the 029 keypunch machines... gad, but I am getting to be a 
dinosaur...  ;-)

73,

Doug, KA2WFT