[GreenKeys] Smith-Corona tty machines circa 1968-69?

[Duncan M. Brown]

John,

Beginning about 1950 and into the 1970s, the US Army was mainly using
teletypewriter equipment made by "Kleinschmidt Laboratories Inc."  At some
time in the mid- 1960s, Kleinschmidt was bought out by Smith Corona (aka
SCM).  By 1970, the Army TTY equipment labels said "Kleinschmidt Division
of SCM"

So all those "Smith Corona" TTYs you remember are better know as
"Kleinschmidts".  (There was no connection between the Smith Corona
typewriters and the Kleinschmidt TTYs as far as design went; they were just
owned by the same parent company.)

If you are interested, there is a Yahoo group that specializes in military
communications. Go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CommCenter-1 
There are a lot of guys from USASTRACOM on the list.

I trained as a TTY repairman at Ft. Gordon in 1966.

Have fun,

Duncan Brown, K2OEQ
USASA  31J

Chief TTY operator & repairman
AWA Electronic Communication Museum
http://www.antiquewireless.org/


 
From: john crum <whippet6364 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Teletype circa 1968-69
To: gil at vauxeloctronics.com
Date: Friday, October 23, 2009, 4:44 PM
 
Dear Mr. Smith,
 
Many of us were in the Army Signal Corps during the above era. Our
MOS was 72B--Communications Center Specialist. We trained at Ft. Gordon
using 3-row teletype machines, made by Smith-Corona. So far, so good.
 
In June of 1968, 16 of us were assigned to Taiwan, working at a tape
relay center on top of a mountain. By chance, I was shifted from the
"floor" which consisted of banks of tape receivers, senders, and monitor
machinery. 12 hour shifts were the norm as the tape messages coming and
going out was incredibly slow.
 
Working at the Taipei terminal, then, was much more varied and
interesting. Again, we used Smith-Corona machines for preparing
messages. Three rows, all caps and an easy-to-use keyboard. Baudot
5-punch tape for us. The S-C was a tabletop model which made it easier
for the repair boys to move them to their shop.
 
For the life of me, I cannot find any reference to Smith-Corona
producing teletype machines for the services. No pictures are available
from all the websites I have visited including NADCOMM, Baudot, Museum
of Communications, etc. I am beginning to doubt myself as to whether or
not I am remembering it correctly. Our terminal had a monitor which
copied tapes we sent out to a receiving unit on the floor. We also had
a printer which typed incoming messages which were then mimeographed for
distribution.
 
I have not been able to contact any of my co-workers from
USASTRATOM. Any help would be appreciated. It has been 40 years, but I
am almost certain we used S-C equipment. Thank you.
 
John