[GreenKeys] Auto Carriage Return/Line Feed for Model 15/19 machines

[Ralph Irish]

Good evening.

I wonder if anyone active on here remembers the Auto Carriage Return/Line Feed
modification for 15/19 machines?  One of the first known implementations of this
idea was created by Vic Poor, K3NIO (SK).  A slightly improved model of this idea
was created by a long gone Silent Key, Bob Zelenka, W8TMO, a few years later.
Because installation was not 'a snap', Bob was reluctant to mass produce these
'kits', and probably  personally installed many of them for local hams in
southern Michigan.  

With an adjustment, it could be activated at any of the last few positions of travel
of the carriage.  It might cause a character to be printed on the carriage's return
to the left margin, but that was far better than having a 'pileup' of characters in
the last position before you could push in the carriage return and bump the crank
handle.

Even if you were sitting there watching, and the sender forgot a CR or it got lost
in a static burst, in most cases you could not perform the two steps in time to
completely prevent a few characters on top of one another at the right margin.

Don't know what brought this to mind other than reading someone's comment about the
covers of 15/19 being 'afterthoughts' and the recesses for the Power Switch and
the Break lever.  The manual CR was also just inside a hole in the left side of the
cover, I believe.

- - - -

I knew Bob very well and we put away a lot of beer at his house and saw his great
craftsmanship on some of the items he built.  He was a toolmaker or diemaker by
training and trade and did beautiful work on anything he did.  

Bob was one of two or three hams in Michigan who got "Mouse Machines" back in the
late 1960s.  Who remembers the "Mouse Machines" and how they got their name?  How
many of you sent in your $115, with high hopes?  I did and got a return check 
about a month later.

The availability of the "Mouse Machines" was mentioned in the October, 1969 issue
of the RTTY Journal.  That issue included a 'centerfold' pull out sheet with a
Waiver of Use for a prospective machine owner to fill out and return with his $115.
Shipping was COD, and they tried to send four to a location, since four machines
were just under the weight for one shipping unit.  Otherwise, one would end up
paying for 500 pounds of 'shipping' to get your 100 pounds of merchandise.

The "Mouse Machines" are worth a full column someday, most appropriately by someone
who received one of them.  It seems to me that in one of the issues of the RTTY
Journal, a list of the 'happy hams' who got them was published, but in my prolonged
look through the last three issues of 1969 and the first six or seven of 1970, I 
did not see such a list.

No matter.  I hope that one of the lucky 160 hams who received the machines is 
presently involved on GreenKeys and will give us a page or two of 'memories' of the
event.

For now,

73,

Ralph - W8ROI




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