[continued from previous message]   
      
   teleprinters were used like this. Many teletypes had letters in their name to   
   indicate their configuration. An RO, for example, had no keyboard or paper   
   tape. KSR teletypes (e.g., KSR 28) had keyboards and no tape equipment. An ASR   
   (like an ASR 33) had both keyboards and a paper tape reader and writer). These   
   ASR 33s were especially popular as I/O devices for early microcomputers.   
   Teleprinters were also used on many early computers. Both the Harvard Mark I   
   and the MIT Whirlwind I used Frieden Flexowriters, a teleprinter made by   
   Frieden, a company eventually acquired by the Singer sewing machine company.   
      
   Flexowriters were known to be used to generate form letters for both the White   
   House and the United States Congress. Combined with an autopen, the system   
   could create letters that people would perceive as hand-typed and signed, even   
   though they were really automatically generated. You can see a Flexowriter in   
   action in the video below.   
      
   Handwriting Computer   
      
   Another trick was to take a tape with a header and a trailer and paste them   
   together to form a loop. Then the printer would just print the same thing over   
   and over. I saw a particularly odd use of this back in the 1970s.   
      
   I was in a mall. There was a booth there purporting to have a handwriting   
   analysis computer. I wasn’t willing to spend $2 on an obvious scam, but I   
   hovered around, trying to understand how it worked. It was oddly familiar, but   
   I couldn’t place it. The machine was very large and had many blinking lights   
   and spinning disks. It looked like a prop from a very cheap 1950s science   
   fiction movie.   
      
   People would pay their money and write something on a piece of blank paper. The   
   clerk would take that paper and place it in a slot. With the press of a button,   
   the machine would suck the paper in and spit it out with some fortune cookie   
   message towards the bottom of the page. It might say, “You are stronger than   
   people realize.”   
      
   [image 9][9]The bulk of a Flexowriter like this one was hidden under the   
   “computer” (CC-BY-SA-3.0[10] by [Godfrey Manning])After a half hour, I   
   remembered where I recognized the machine from. The big box was, of course, a   
   fraud. But it was hiding something and the only part of that something visible   
   was a row of brown buttons. Those brown buttons belonged to a Frieden   
   Flexowriter. You can see the brown buttons near the top of the unit in the   
   picture.   
      
   Once I realized that was the “brain” of the device, it was obvious how it   
   worked. Hidden inside was the paper tape reader. It had a loop of tape   
   containing some line feeds, a fortune, more line feeds, and a stop code. The   
   whole loop might have had a dozen or so fortune cookies, each with a stop code   
   at the end of each.   
      
   When you put the paper in the slot, it really went around the teleprinter’s   
   platen. You press the start tape button, and the line feeds suck up the paper   
   and advance past the writing. Then, the fortune types out on the page. The   
   final line feeds eject the page, and then it stops, ready for the next fortune.   
   Pretty clever, although totally fraudulent.   
      
   Death of the Teleprinter   
      
   Teleprinters couldn’t survive the “glass teletype” revolution. CRT-based   
   terminals swept away the machines from most applications. Real wordprocessors   
   and magnetic media wiped out the applications in wordprocessing and   
   typesetting.   
      
   Companies like Teletype, Olivetti, and Siemens (disclosure: Hackaday is part of   
   Supply Frame, which is part of Siemens) stopped making teleprinters֫. In   
   today’s   
   world, these seem impossibly old-fashioned. But in 1932, they were   
   revolutionary, as seen in the video below.   
      
   If you noticed the similarity between most modern teleprinters and electric   
   typewriters, you aren’t wrong[11]. Linux will still let you log in using a   
   hardcopy terminal[12].   
      
   Links:   
   [1]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Teletype.jpg?w=800 (image)   
   [2]: https://hackaday.com/2023/09/04/3d-printed-um-hook-and-loop-fasteners/   
   (link)   
   [3]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1440px-Prin   
   ing_Telegraph.jpg (link)   
   [4]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1440px-Prin   
   ing_Telegraph.jpg?w=400 (image)   
   [5]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1440px-ASR-   
   3_at_CHM.agr_.jpg (link)   
   [6]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1440px-ASR-   
   3_at_CHM.agr_.jpg?w=400 (image)   
   [7]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 (link)   
   [8]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1024px-Flexowriter.jpg   
   (link)   
   [9]: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/1024px-Flex   
   writer.jpg?w=400 (image)   
   [10]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 (link)   
   [11]: https://hackaday.com/2019/11/14/upgrade-board-turns-typewr   
   ter-into-a-teletype/ (link)   
   [12]: https://hackaday.com/2020/04/15/logging-into-linux-with-a-   
   930s-teletype/ (link)   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)