[GreenKeys] Fw: Re: Teletype and electronics........

[Jim Haynes]

On Thu, 11 Apr 2013, Peter Gottlieb wrote:

> Western Union.  The 33, despite being a lot cheaper in construction than the 
> 28 or even the 35, still gave me probably into the thousands of hours of 
> service with only minimal maintenance.  I did tons of coding on it, ran

The original market intended for the 32/33 line was TELEX/TWX service
in business offices where the machine didn't get much use.  Two hours
a day was frequently mentioned.

Then the minicomputer business happened, especially in the era of cheap
integrated circuits.  The 33 was a natural choice to go with a 
minicomputer because it was the cheapest thing out there with a keyboard
and printer and paper tape punch and reader to take care of the minimal
I/O needs of the machine.  So the Model 33s were suddently being run
24/7.  (And Burroughs even chose a 33 for the console device on their
B5500 mainframe, replacing a modified electric typewriter.  But except
for having the motor running 24/7 the 33 on the B5500 didn't get heavy
use - just job start and stop messages and taking commands from the
operator.)

So one could argue that the M33 went a long way to making the minicomputer
affordable for a lot of applications where a better terminal would have
priced it out of the market.  And then when time sharing came along with
the Dartmouth system, and later with time sharing on minicomputers, the
M33 was again the most economical terminal for the job.

It is said that Teletype was planning to use felt clutches in the 32/33
line but was persuaded by Western Union to adapt the Model 28 style all-
metal clutches.  That went a long way to reducing the maintenance
requirements.

I once heard a talk given by one of the principal designers of the 32/33
line, early in its product life.  He referred to an editorial in a
mechanical design engineering magazine of the period.  The editor had
been invited by the U.S. Army to view some of the after World War II
tests of German V-2 rockets at White Sands Proving Ground.  He was duly
impressed with the intense light and heat evident in the rocket exhaust,
and asked one of the German engineers near him what material the engine
was made of.  "Stahl, eisen stahl" (steel, iron steel) was the reply.
He expressed his amazement that ordinary steel could stand up to the
tremendous heat.  The German's explanation was, "Drei minuten."  Three
minutes - that's how long the engine had to last.  So "Drei minuten"
became a motto for the Model 32/33 designers.