[GreenKeys] New To Me 33 ASR

[Justin Scott]

Greetings, Gents...

First posting to the list here.

I had a 33 ASR when I was young, but as many things do when you're a minor, it 
disappeared one summer when I was away.  At the time, I had nothing to use it
with, but had convinced my stepfather to purchase it at auction anyway, because
I thought it would be cool to have.

Fast forward a few decades, and I've finally managed to get my hands on another
one, rather nice looking one in fact, which came to me with "issues that
require an expert."  I finally have things to connect it to (primary hobby is
retrocomputing), so I've wanted another for some time now.

Needless to say, I knew very little about the internal workings of the machine
when I got this one, and I had no idea what was "normal" or "unusual" behavior
anymore, let alone what was specifically wrong with the machine.

Thanks to everyone's dilligence in getting documentation scanned and online,
and picking the brain of a close friend who is rather familiar with these
machines, I managed to work out all of the problems with it.  I had joined the
list at some point because I'd come to my wits end, and wanted to ask for
guidance, but in the time between subscribing and moderator approval, I figured
out those last two issues.

So, I figure here I am on the list, and I've seen that there are some
interesting conversations here, so I might as well stick around a while and see
what else I can learn.  Also, I figured that some of you might like to hear
about the issues this thing had, and what all I did to make it work.  I'll
appologize right out the gate if I get the wrong terminology on the parts that
I'm going to talk about, but those who are familiar enough with the 33
apparatus ought to know what I mean anyhow.

These photos were all I had seen of the machine before purchase:
http://imgur.com/a/1eyHk
(Except the last one, which was taken after resolving all of the internal
issues.  FWIW, the WD40 wasn't used as "lubricant", it was used as a solvent to
clean up some of the very gunky parts prior to lubricating them with Starret
M1, which is a great aerosol all-purpose lubricant.  It's the red can next to
the WD40.)

The description provided said a few things like:
"could be an easy fix for someone who knows how to work on these machines."
"it continuously prints left arrows"
"sold for parts or repair"

In a nutshell, to the best of my memory (since I didn't keep very good notes
during the process) these are the issues I found, in the order I found them:
1) The H-Plate for the keyboard reset was disconnected.
2) At some point, the retainer clip for the right side of the keyboard had come
off, and the end cap came separated.  Since the universal lever for the reset
latch was on the wrong side of the trip lever for the latch, someone messed
with it, didn't get it back together right, and it couldn't latch/reset
properly anyhow.
3) The common bar in the keyboard that releases the latch was gummed up, and
the springs were not able to pull it back down after key release.
4) The contact springs block wasn't in the correct location, because the
keyboard endcap had been forced back into place without the switch assembly in
the correct alignment.
5) (I caused this problem) - the reader supply had a blown fuse because I
accidentally shorted the feed contact to the distributor shaft while trying to
learn how the machine worked.  It's nice that the fuse blew, but it took out
one of the rectifier diodes on the reader supply.  Judging that 3 of the
original diodes were already there, and another had been replaced with a
different part, this must not be the first time this has happened.
6) The rack and pinion slides in the printhead mechanism, one of the vertical
stop slides was lifted up and jammed in a higher than normal position, and
wasn't making contact with its control lever.

All of that got fixed just fine.

Now, after all this, I still had a peculiar scenario where the machine ran
normal in line mode (not connected to current), and ran open in local mode.
This one perplexed me for longer than it probably should have, but knowing how
complex these machines are, and that the documentation and diagrams expect a
higher level of familiarity than I had, it's no surprise that I would not have
recognized the issues.  Technically, it was running open in line mode, but not
a typical open - i.e. the selector was not engaged to drive the printer, but
the distributor was not in a stop condition, and was free running.  The same
was true in local, except the selector was engaged, running the printer fully
open.

At some point, the adjuster nut for the distributor trip magnet lever had
backed out significantly enough that the reader feed lever was underneath it,
not on top of it.  As soon as I fixed that, and had it properly adjusted, my
distributor would finally stop between keystrokes like it should, and in both
LINE and LOCAL, I would have a calm machine with nothing running, and the
printer would only engage in local mode for a single character cycle, and then
stop, as it should - but in Line mode, it was running like it always had RX
voltage, never cycling or "running open".  Turns out, scabbed onto the side of
the CCU is a perfboard that opto-isolates the loops, and constantly provides
loop current to the receiver, hence why it wouldn't "run open" in line mode,
because it had power there as if a host were connected.

So, the last issues to conquer are cosmetic type issues.  You'll notice in the
first picture above there's a chunk of the cover missing between the right side
of the cover and the CCU area, the missing chunk was provided, and has been
glued back together.  The clear plastic on the print cover has a couple
"mushrooms" busted off, and needs to be glued to stay in place as well.  Also,
the reader control lever is broken off of the reader switch shaft, and that
needs to be fixed as well.

Question though - does anyone have the front trim piece that covers the case
screws and mode selection knob?  I'd love to have that piece to finish off the
look of the machine.  I'd love a proper stand for it as well, but don't really
need that as much, so long as I can hang the left side of the machine off of
the table so the tapes have a place to feed to/from.  I'm located in North
Texas, DFW area.

I'm interested in other machines as well.  I have one retro machine that will
speak Baudot, and it would be interesting to have something that will work with
it.  I don't need a 28 ASR, per se, and a 32 ASR seems marginally redundant
considering that it looks so similar to the 33.  I would, however, be
interested in one or two more 33 ASRs for other things that I have that can
make use of a teletype.

cheers,
j