[GreenKeys] Interesting modified teletype

Sat Mar 30 11:35:09 EDT 2024

> -----Original Message-----
> From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net <greenkeys-
> bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of John Spigel
> Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2024 2:27 PM
> To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Interesting modified teletype
> 
> Interesting stuff. Looks like the work predates 8 bit machines.
> I remember years ago when bits and sometimes piles of the tube plugins of the
> old computers would show up surplus. I definitely was surprised that arrays of
> small CRTs were used as memory storage. It shows how clever you had to be to
> solve problems back then. And I wonder how much beer you had with colleagues
> to find those solutions and the lab experiments performed to verify and limit the
> risks. I'm sure it was a fun job. Military? Who has that story?

Well the first practical tubes were known as Williams Tubes, these days we call them "Kilburn - Williams Tubes" and the guys who developed them were looking to use the technology to declutter radar images.
They were working in Manchester UK and by 1947 they could store 2048 bits on a CRT tube. They wanted to exercise the store at high speed and is reported Max Newman suggest building a computer to exercise it.
The result was the Small Scale Experimental Machine usually known as the Baby. The other electronics in the baby is interesting and in many ways just as innovation an ingenious.

https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/williams-demonstrates-crt-storage/

https://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/computer50/www.computer50.org/mark1/newman.html

and yes IBM used arrays of these as storage on the 701, under licence from the uk.....

.. I also find it interesting that the other commonly used storage technology of the early 1950's, the mercury delay line had been developed for the same purpose

> Should this history be preserved and part of the education for new IT
> professionals?

Of course. Just to return to teletypes, when Kilburn & Williams expanded the Baby into the MK1 they expanded the word length from 32 bits to 40 as they were using a creed teleprinter and tape reader Alan Turing brought (stole?) from Bletchly Park and this was a multiple of five

> 
> 73, John W1AN
> 

Dave
G4UGM
Volunteer demonstrator of the Baby replica.

> On 30-Mar-24 08:36, E. wrote:
> > Man would I love to tear those apart to see how they work!
> >
> > …so that is - like John said, is a heavily modified M19 (the non-standard keys
> are really interesting too) with a standard-ish punch — missing the dial and all
> (but with other goods)… and then it feeds into that modified half-a 14TD (the
> verifier or whatever they call it… it has the front end of a 14TD, but not the
> innards on the back).  The tape then goes into what looks like a gutted M14 that
> has a (standard?) M19 tape punch on the inside (the duplicator)?
> >
> > Also interesting is that when they show the M19 from the side, it looks like
> they have a cut-out backdrop (where the tape goes), to hide whatever is behind
> the 19 (top secret maybe?).
> >
> > It does almost look like a standard M19 metal table, but again modified.  That
> half of a 14TD looks to be propped up on a piece of wood, so that the tape
> spool can sit in front of it (usually a standard 14TD would take up most of that
> space).
> >
> > Also curious is the piece of metal that skews towards the camera when the 19
> is shown from the side.
> >
> >
> >> On Mar 30, 2024, at 12:08 AM, John, W9DDD <w9ddd at tapr.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Interesting,
> >>
> >> Heavily modified 19 keyboard punch (technically called "Model 15 Perforator
> Transmitter").  Looks like they're punching hexadecimal onto a 5 bit tape.   The
> character counter has some extra switches.
> >>
> >> Not a standard 14 TD (maybe MXD?) so not a 19 table per se. Looks to be 19
> size, but without the 14tD base.
> >>
> >>
> >> On 3/29/2024 11:17 PM, Paul Heller wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> About 8:30 in the video. Model 19?
> >>>
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAVT4rZbcGE
> >>>
> >>> Paul
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