[GreenKeys] younger generatiion greenkeyers ?

[Christian Gauger-Cosgrove]

I'm twenty, and I'm quite interested in "old" technology (my interest
in teletypes stems mostly from my interest in vintage computing).

And getting teens and young children interested in something as "dull"
(air quotes) as teletypes would be quite a task, what with their
interest being drawn to the moronic console video game systems (woo).
(Who would've thought that the powerful, room filling mainframes or
large 'walls' of minicomputers would eventually have become so
powerful, and shrank down so far that the result is that teenagers are
now using them to swear at people on the opposite side of the world
while shooting them in an FPS...)


Now a way to get small kids and interested teens would be to show off
as much of the teletype gear as possible. Perhaps setting up a local
loop from one teletype at one end of the house to one at the other; or
using a BSD PC to show off your teletype (like printing out an RSS
newsfeed, or printing Twitter messages, or - using an ASCII teletype -
using it as the direct system terminal). If you're a person who owns
some vintage minicomputers or microcomputers, you can of course use
your teletype as the system console, use both to get the kids
intrigued in retro/vintage/classic technology.


Cheers,
Christian




On 26 August 2011 15:36, Pete Lancashire <pete at petelancashire.com> wrote:
> On the 5 hours drive back from Georges and from other conversations with friends
> curious  how many under 25 or 30 green-keys (keyers ?) there are and
> can anything be done
> to interest the teens or even younger ?
>
> I've had two teens totally go nuts over watching a 35 do its thing and
> one at least said it
> helped him decide to go into engineering, one win.
>
> the other though I had was one of those two sides of a coin. There's
> still a lot of Teletype
> stuff out there, but an awful lot is just getting trashed as dad or
> uncle die off and the
> kids just call the junk man. This could have easily happed the latest
> pile George was
> given the opportunity to rescue. On the flip side there are less and
> less of those interested.
>
> Oh well .. just some thoughts on if  can or should be done
>
> BTW Thanks to George I now have the means to do what John Nagle did, A strip
> printer that what looks like with a little work will fit in a glass
> box and be ready for demo
> next year.
>
> Except for once owning a 19 that was lost in a fire, which other then
> minor adjustment
> this will my first pre 28/35 Teletype I've worked on .. be ready for
> questions !!!
>
> -pete
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