[GreenKeys] Something interesting over on ePay...

[Jim Haynes]

It certainly would not have been an authentic prop for M.A.S.H.
as I don't think anyone has ever seen a field version of the 26 -
altho all the ones in ham hands came from the Bell System, so any
non-Bell uses might never have seen the light of day.  I think
someone once told me he had used a 26 in a National Guard capacity,
but then it might have been a TWX station.

I was discussing the date range with Duncan - his 1949 date came from a 
book of museum artifacts assembled by some Teletype guys when the museum 
at the plant was being broken up.  Gave the numbers produced as 5,628 for 
the Bell System and 1,995 for others.  Some of those others would perhaps 
have been non-Bell telephone companies - I don't know how TWX was done in 
non-Bell territories.  That 1949 could be a typo for a 1939 ending date, 
or could be the date they quit making spare parts.  It was the late V.P. 
for R&D of Teletype who told me they had discontinued making the 26s 
because the expected cost saving was not realized and it was less costly 
to make and service a single model of machine. But I'm not clear if he 
meant they discontinued making the machines fairly soon, or if they 
continued past the late 1930s.

An index of Bell System Practices issued in 1955 shows some BSPs relating 
to Model 26.  The BSP describing Model 26 briefly was issued in 1938.  Of 
the BSPs I have relating to Model 26 the latest ones were issued in 1944.

When you talk about the episodes of M.A.S.H. the TV show, another
possibility is the movie that preceded the TV servies.

Much ado about very little.