[MRCG] Strategically timed QSB

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Feb 24, 2018, at 19:41, Tim <timsamm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mark - I always thought those were called Monkey Wrenches....  If that
> one is metric (versus SAE) it is worth quite a lot!  ;o)

Or maybe I overpaid for a stupid left-handed one?

> 
> Those terminals are nuts!  Straps to the back of any Marine....
> BTW, a guy who worked with us up here at EG&G left to start up a bubble
> memory company when that technology first emerged.  He did quite a lot of
> industrial controls work with them - pretty bullet proof in a tough
> environment.  I'm sure your Dad knew him - Bob Nelson..  While with us he
> developed a space-qualified PDP-8 that flew in the Skylab mission back
> then..Life Sciences lab....

Cool stuff! I'll as my Dad about him.

These terminals use the same keyboards as the UGC-74. I mean, the identical keyboards, complete with the UGC-74 keyboard dataplates! I have some partial details of the terminal's rear panel connectors from the manual that came with it (which I plan to scan and upload), and I think that some of the rear panel connectors have similar or identical pinouts to the UGC-74. I have a habit of buying brand new connectors to make cables Because I Can, but boy are those things expensive! According to the manual, it was intended that they could mate with either a UGC-74 or UGC-129 (depending on which armed forces branch) for use as a local hard copy printer. I don't know yet whether these terminals ever got fielded. They kind of have the smell of a contract competitor that didn't get selected to me. That doesn't make them any less cool, though.

It's possible that I'll try to press one of these beasts into service for Clatternet, perhaps mated up with my Dovetron CV-3883/UG converter. Maybe I'll give a talk on my reverse-engineering projects around these terminals and other similar stuff at a future MRCG meet. I think it's getting too close to the 2018 MRCG meet to expect that I make much progress on them, but maybe next year? These terminals overlap my military communications and vintage computer hobbies, and they're going to give me my first experience with bubble memory (finally!).

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/