[GreenKeys] teletypes and linotypes

[Bryan Brodie]

I was very fortunate as a third grader to visit the Richmond Times
Dispatch (circa 1967) and see the Linotypes they used to publish the
papers back then. To a lifelong gadget freak this was beyond amazing.
The operator gave each of us a line of type to take home as a souvenir
- and I also remember him tossing some type back into the top of the
unit to be remelted.

Years later when they went to phototypesetting, the degradation of
print quality was obvious. You could see how the letters were
previously impressed into the paper, as opposed to the blurry output
from phototypesetting. (for some reason I've had a thing for
typography since I was 3 years old)

I first saw a teletype (ASR33) around 1974 in a classroom at my junior
high school - a group of nerds were playing computer golf on the
HP2000 Timeshared BASIC minicomputer dialup link.

By the time I got out of high school I was teaching the programming
class - I kept annoying the instructors by correcting them because
they kept teaching it wrong (NEXT does not come before FOR).

There was one spoiled kid whose father bought or leased him a 33 - he
was the first person I ever knew to have computer access at home. At
that time, such a concept was so inconceivable that it never even
crossed my mind that we'd get to where we are today.

I have the ASR35 that George Hutchinson gave me back in 2009. A
Linotype? That would be awesome, but I expect I might need a bigger
house...

I have all the software from that long ago high school minicomputer
system, given to me by the guy who decommissioned it in 1983 (killed
by the Apple II). The purpose of acquiring the ASR35 was to have the
same exact environment that I used to program as a kid. I managed in a
haphazard way to get the emulator to talk to the ASR, but never e x a
c t l y as I did in school.

I think there's a minor issue with the 35 that prevented me from fully
succeeding.

(if any repairmen expect to pass through the Denver area in the next
year, I'd love to talk off-list about a service call - my 35 probably
could use a few hours of TLC. I have all the service manuals, but find
them daunting - definitely more of a software guy - I'd make it worth
your while)

I also (on a completely unrelated note) recently managed to acquire
IBM's MVS 3.8j, the first operating system I ran as a computer
operator at the age of 19. This multimillion dollar OS ran in 16MB and
controlled over 650 terminals, while running batch jobs at the same
time. A lot of that architecture is present in Windows & UNIX today.

Cool stuff - kids these days, they don't know how much they're
missing, or even where the stuff they use today originally came
from...

(if I'm repeating anything from previous posts, apologies. once you're
over 50, you're allowed to repeat yourself as much as it suits you)