[GreenKeys] Somewhat OT: The "Hotline"

[Duncan Brown]

The first Washington-Moscow Hotline (1963-1980) used a M28ASR at each 
end to send & receive the Washington messages in the Latin alphabet and 
a RFT T 63 at each end to send & receive the Russian messages In the 
Cyrillic alphabet. (It was up to the one receiving the message to do the 
translation.)



Two sets of equipment were available for redundancy. The black boxes are 
ETCRRM cipher machines provided by STK of Norway.

The RFT T 63 printers were made in East Germany and can type in both the 
Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The machines use the standard ITA2 5-bit 
code, with  the addition of an additional shift. The type arms each have 
three characters and the platen has three "shift" positions (Figures, 
Latin, Cyrillic). The "Blank" key was used to shift to Cyrillic.

The T-63 was only used for Cyrillic printing in the Hot Line. These 
machines are now at the National Cryptologic Museum, though no longer on 
display. We have a T 63 on display at the AWA Museum and may be the only 
one on public display in the Americas.

Have fun,

Duncan Brown, K2OEQ
USASA  31J30

Antique Wireless Association Museum Asst. Curator, Commercial Equipment
(also Chief TTY operator & repairman)
http://www.antiquewireless.org/



On 29-Aug-18 20:45, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> The famous Hotline was installed between the Pentagon and the Kremlin 
> on this day in 1963; despite its popular name "The Red Phone", it 
> actually used RTTY then fax (now with encrypted email).
>
> It was a weird arrangement; American teletype machines had been 
> installed in the Kremlin to receive messages from Washington, and 
> Soviet teletypes were installed in the Pentagon.  The first message 
> was “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back 1234567890" 
> in both directions (with translators at both ends, of course).
>
> -- Dave VK2KFU
>


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