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

[COURYHOUSE at aol.com]

Ralph - I have seen  some write up on it... and a needed  feature!   keeps  
form having a whole  worn in   right  side of the paper! <grin!>
 
Please tell me more  about the "Mouse Machines"   
 
 
Ed#   (ww.smecc.org)
 
 
 
In a message dated 11/12/2012 9:56:32 P.M. Alaskan Standard Time,  
w8roi at wowway.com writes:

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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