[GreenKeys] Teletype Highspeed (>100 wpm) Equipment Question

[NNN7DXB at aol.com]

HI Christian:

Replying to yours regarding the High Speed BRPE machines and
whether there were any high speed readers ever developed. Likely
there were, but not at the high speed levels of the BRPE punches.

In the military, we had 2 items that were related to the BRPEs:

a. The DSTE (AN/FYA-71) had a "high speed" tape reader. The
one that I am most famliar with had a tape reading speed that 
was roughly the equivalent of about 300 to 600 wpm. We used
these in military CommCenters on AUTODIN Mode I data
circuits. The actual wpm speed may have been greater than
600 wpm - but we don't know for sure anymore. In any event,
they were pretty fast. On the DSTE, you had two speed
selections: fast and slow. We generally used the "fast"
position to keep traffic moving.

b. The second high speed readers were installed on AMARS
equipment, also used in larger tape relay stations, also
CommCenters. Same tape reader essentially as the DSTE.
The AMARS was an equipment that was used for splitting
tapes for multiple destinations - i.e. if you had a message 
going to more than one station, the AMARS could cut a
separate tape for each station. AMARS stands for Automatic
Multiple Address Routing System. DSTE is Digitial Subscriber
Terminal Equipment. Again, not sure what the wpm speed
of the BRPE was on the AMARS, but it was fast. No printing
on AMARS, but you did have printing capability on the DSTE.
Using the print capability on the DSTE slowed it down
considerably though, so most terminal stations didn't use it.
In a tape relay using DSTE, printing was an absolute 
necessity, as received tapes often had to be manually relayed
to non-automatic (teletype) stations called tributaries. A tape relay
could have 40 or 50 separate teletype tributaries of its' own
to take care of and most of these were point to point (dedicated)
circuits.

All of these "high speed" readers were eventually replaced or
made obsolete rather quickly in the early 70s by the photo-
electric cell reader. No moving parts -- just a photo electric
cell that could take a punched paper tape and read it at near
the speed of light and not lose any characters. In the military,
the primary tape for most applications was the 5 level tape.
Tape width didn't matter, as both the BRPEs and the photo
electrics could be manually adjusted to accept either.

The only ASCII reperforators and transmitters that I am aware
of are the Model 35 ASRs. The Army did not use these, but 
the USAF had a few. They lasted until the Model 40 lines
of electronic teletype machines came out in the mid-80s.

Hope this helps,

Dave in SC
CommCenter Group
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