[GreenKeys] FW: [CommCenter-1] Teletype Tape

[Duncan M. Brown]

I'm forwarding this for Dave F. on the CommCenter list; he is RO on this
list.
 
--Duncan




----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: CommCenter-1 at yahoogroups.com
Sent: 24-Nov-08 00:55:24 
Subject: [CommCenter-1] Teletype Tape


List:

Does anyone know the reasons for the "color" of teletype tape over
the years? (Especially US-issued tape).

In the US Army, most tape, whether it was the wide stuff used with
the Kleinschmidt machines (for edge printing), or the narrow tape 
used with Siemens or Teletype Corp machines, the color was primarily yellow.
It was generally oiled, and had a unique smell to it.

When the yellow tape roll wound down to the core, the core (last 14 feet
of tape) would turn pink (remember the pink chads? Those were the
Classified ones!).

There were exceptions over the years.

In Germany, in the 60s, we often had rolls of tape that were PINK. 
When the tape reel wound down to the core, the tape became a
very dark purple. I don't recall that this tape was oily. This was US
tape that came thru the normal supply system.

Also in Germany, while at the Regimental CommCenter with the
14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, our commo supply folks purchased
tape off the civilian economy because the Army supply system had
apparently run out for a time. The German tape was white, not oiled.
It seemed heavier than US tape (more like parchment) and came 
in roll form.

In another lot of German tape (same commcenter), we received the
same tape,but it was more or less a vanilla color, with colored
flowers on it. The flowers were blue, pink and green mostly.

German and Dutch Army soldiers also used white tape with their
Siemens equipment (narrow tape).

We used this tape in Siemens and Lorenz (German) teletype equipment
that we had at the time. We also had some US Kleinschmidt gear that
had been modified (narrow tape guide installed), so they could use the 
narrower tape, which made everything compatible.

In Vietnam, our (Army) commcenter once had to perform alt-route
services for an Air Force commcenter that was down (off line) for
several days. When the airmen brought their traffic to us to send,
they brought it in a large, brown, paper grocery bag. Their tape was
black. We had never seen black tape before. Their tape was dry,
unoiled. The color was flat black...

All of these different types of tapes worked well in our machines.

When I worked for Western Union as a part-timer in Salinas, CA,
we had fan-folded tape that was in a cardboard box (called a "tank").
It fed from under the machine into the peforator and in theory, was
supposed to fold itself back up after it had been punched, or as it went
thru the TD while being transmitted. It didn't fan fold back very well,
and after we exhausted that lot, we went back to roll tape

Unrelated, the same WU facility also had a few very, very old
Model 2B strip printers left over from the year "1". The WU maintenance
men used them, and they used a very thin, white tape that was gummed
on the back side. This tape was old telegram tape, probably left over
from earlier years, but there were cases and cases of it.

Some of the teletype maintenance folks over the years used green
mylar tape with pre-punched tests, mostly RYs and QBF test 
sentences on them that had their ends taped together to form an
endless test loop. These were used on machines that were in the
teletype repair shop undergoing tests after extensive maintenance
or rebuild work.

Similar tapes were used in Vietnam as part of the one-time-tape
training system (Python) used to train S. Vietnamese signalmen.
We used green mylar, because the Viets kept tearing the paper
tape, and the mylar held up a lot better with those folks (the original
Python tapes were paper tape).

If anyone knows the significance of the color of tape, or the history
behind it, please share your info. Especially interesting: why was
most US tape "yellow"?? It is my understanding that the black tape
was primarily intended for use with early computers where a photo-electric
cell was used to read the tape. Oiled tape was said to spread a film
across the photo electric cell that would eventually cause it to misread
the data. I doubt there is any truth there, because, in Vietnam, we used
a UNIVAC 1004 with a photo electric cell and yellow (oiled) tape. The
maintainer just wiped the photo electric cell off a few times daily and the
yellow (Kleinschmidt wider) tape worked just fine...


Dave F