[GreenKeys] More on the TTY ribbons?

[Randy and Sherry Guttery]

On 8/10/2011 5:22 PM, Bill wrote:
> I think it was my 3rd or 4th ship that we finally got a "copy machine".
> It was a thermal transfer system. You would put the TTY copy inside a
> two part sleeve - the 2 parts being a clear cover and the purple media.
> This would be inserted in to a thermal unit that would shine an intense
> light on it and make an image of the message onto the purple media. We
> would then take the purple sheet off and put it on the "ditto" machine
> and run copies. By the end of your 8 hour watch, you were purple from
> head to toe.
3M Thermofax.
> It was years later that Xerox was integrated into the radio shack.
The earliest Xerox I remember on Proteus was the venerable 
Xerox 660 - one of the first "smaller than a car" photo 
copier. The revolutionized "copying".  They weren't 
particularly fast - 660 copies per hour (which is the 
obvious source of the model #) - but at .02 to .04 per copy 
- they were WAY cheaper than anything before them.
>   On my
> last ship, the USS Ranger,
Almost my first ship - had orders to Ranger out of "C" 
school - but with Ranger ordered to overhaul late 1971 (and 
it's Autonetics SINS being replaced by a Sperry SINS) - the 
3325 billet was eliminated.  Turned out I was trained on the 
Sperry SINS while Proteus was in the yards in 1972 - so by 
the time Ranger's yard period was over - I was qualified for 
that billet as well.  However - I stayed with Proteus - 
doing a total of 51 months aboard.
> we had two huge Xerox machines that would
> spit out around 100+ copies a minute each. These ran 24/7. I can't
> remember the model number but I was one of the repairmen on it. Talk
> about using some paper and going thru a lot of drums!
We had one "monster" aboard Proteus - I don't recall where 
it was (seemed like it was in one of the department 
offices)  I don't recall it's model number - but it was 
nearly the size of a desk - and it was very fast...

I know that the powers that be got real upset when someone 
ran off several thousand copies on it one month - most of us 
knew how to bypass the copy counter - and brought our own 
paper - apparently - someone forgot (or didn't know about) 
the counter - and when the bill came - heads rolled!

(For those too young to remember - the early Xerox were both 
rented by the month - plus a charge per copy over some fixed 
number of copies per month).
Those were the days!

-- 
randy guttery

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