On 8/2/2022 8:51 PM, Joe Duszyński wrote:
> Now making my IBM wheelwriter into a multibaud teletype

Back in the 70s when I got into hobby computers the IBM Selectric was
everywhere, but letter quality printers were relatively scarce, or
expensive.  I got obsessed with the idea of mounting a bunch of
solenoids in a frame that could be set on top of the IBM keyboard to
make any Selectric work as a computer printer.    I never found cheap or
small enough solenoids with enough force and ended up getting a used 
printing Selectric that has been part of an airline reservations
terminal, gutting it and building a simple parallel interface for it.  
The software was all hand assembled and poke'd  by a BASIC program and
relied on timing loops but it worked.   When I finally got it to run 10
characters per second I declared victory - the Selectric was capable of
14.8 with a real closed-loop controller.

A couple years later, my buddy who was a county attorney, had $3K left
in his budget and wondered if I could help him get a word processor for
that much $.   We went with an Osborne 1 that came with WordStar, and a
used printing Selectric from Anderson-Jacobsen that had a parallel
interface and it worked sweet, letter quality print at full Selectric
speed.    He was the envy of all the lawyers in town who were locked
into expensive contracts with Wang, CPT, etc., paying more in lease
payments than his whole system cost.

73, Bob W9RAN

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