[GreenKeys] Teletype M38ASR...

[Jim Haynes]

When I was working for Teletype, of course nobody was much interested in 
my opinion about what products should be developed, but I was advocating
for an up/low case Model 33 as soon as possible because I could see the
application to computer word processing.  The 33 is not what you would
want to use for final printing, but would be adequate for input and 
editing.  The 38 didn't come out until the 1970s, and had been stretched
in width to accomodate the wide computer line printer paper that would
take 132 columns.  I don't know whose idea it was that a wide printer
was needed - certainly not for word processing.

Stretching the printer not only increased the carriage return time (if
you actually went beyond the normal 80 characters or so) but made some
of the parts more flexible.  That resulted in some part frequently jumping
off its mating part - I forget the particulars now, but it was often
necessary to open up the machine and put the parts back together.  We
bought one of these machines when I was working at University of 
California, Santa Cruz in that time frame.  We also had a G.E. Terminet
300 which was a much superior machine but was much more costly.  That
was a machine with the type pallets on the end of flexible fingers pulled
across the page by a belt - similar in concept to the Teletype Model 40,
and based on the IBM 1403 principle.

Another shortcoming of the 38 was that the keyboard was even worse in 
touch than the Model 33 keyboard it was based on.  I was told while I
was still at Teletype that they knew how to make a better keyboard but
there just wasn't time in the product schedule to develop it.  So the
lousy keyboard afflicted not only the 38 but the intended to be top of
the line 37, and also the Inktronic KSR.

I know some of the Bell companies were offering DECWriter terminals since
Teletype had nothing worthwhile to offer for a period of time.