It's good to see all here that value the
ingenuity and creativity of the past, and more importantly, enjoy
it, and share. I'm new to this list after very recently
reintroducing myself to the TTY world. My first experience was
long ago in the mid 1960's with an M15. In the late 1970's I
dragged home from my workplace a fully loaded ASR33 with the
embedded phone modem, along with boxes of paper and tape. It had
been abandoned in place by NJ-Bell. I did not start to work with
it until a couple years later, after a move, building a homebrew
solid state TU unit. Then, little did I know, hams were only
working with 5-bit. At the time there were few home computers or a
foreseeable need, so sadly and to create space, the machine went
to the curb.
So this year after almost 40, I picked up some pieces and parts
thanks to Bob K1QVX and Jim W2JC to recreate/relive/cherish the
past and restore to life a M19 and M15 pair. I'm still scrounging
for parts, but have made good progress in the last month or so. My
M15 has been cleanud up, is printing and is waiting for proper
lube and a few keytops. The cabinet will need some paint, glass,
etc. My M19 table has been scraped of loose rust, spot sanded and
Por-15 primed and painted. The Thyratron P.S. unit sits under a
work bench for now and will need some careful study on its needs.
I've built up what I call a "Table in a Box" to provide loop and
DC needed for bench repair for the M19 printer, KB and punch.
There's no room in the barn for the full table! The box could be
used in place of the full P.S. if needed! I have some progress
pictures on a webpage.
https://w1an.com/tty-project
The unit uses a conventional full wave bridge with choke input
filtering, a 10 ohm series resistor for monitoring the loop
current and receptacles for the printer and punch DC. (I have some
extra Nema receptacles if someone needs them.)
Hope this is of interest!
73, John W1AN