[GreenKeys] 232 COM port to TTY - Mighty-Mite to the rescue!

[Duncan M. Brown]

> [Original Message]
> From: Bob McConnell <rmcconne at lightlink.com>
> To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: 21-Feb-09 19:13:29
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] 232 COM port to TTY - Mighty-Mite to the rescue!
>
>
> You know, I never did find the "Made by Mattel" label on any of those 
> things. But that's what I always thought about them. A few were 
> installed on my destroyer (NFIT) during the last overhaul I was involved 
> with. I was glad I didn't have to repair them.
>
Do you remember what year that was?

When they work, they are great and a much simpler mechanism than the Teletype Corp or Kleinschmidt units, but they are so compact that they are a real pain to work on.  I'm digging into one now. Glad I didn't have to work on them in the service too, when you are under pressure to get a circuit back up.

>
> I believe the last production runs were bought out by a startup that 
> later became Black Box Corp. They wrapped a black plastic clam shell 
> case around them with a parallel TTL interface/ASCII translator board in 
> the base and sold them as Black Box Printers. A lot of guys with Z80 and 
> 8085 computers bought them up as computer peripherals. It was pretty 
> easy to use them with CP/M and other early 8-bit systems.
>
Thanks for that bit of history, I had not heard that story.  When I was in Army TTY repair school in late 1966, we were told that they were out of business.  They started in the mid 50's in Paramus, NJ as the "Teleprinter Corp."  They merged with Greist Manufacturing Company, of New Haven, Conn in 1961.   Then changed their company name to their successful product name "MITE" -Miniaturized Integrated Telegraph Equipment (just as Teletype had done).  Later, they moved to New Haven (to share a facility with Greist ??).  


---Duncan
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