[GreenKeys] Done lurking; Teletype model 33 KSR/ASR restoration

[Jim Haynes]

On Thu, 6 Aug 2015, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> Well, I certainly remember the dreaded DEC VT-05...
>
> 20 lines (not 24), 72 columns (not 80), upper case display (but at least
> the keyboard could be told to send lower case), cursor addressing

There may have been a method to the madness.  I just finished reading a
book about the rise and fall of Datapoint.  Their first product, Model 
3300, was designed to be plug-compatible with a Model 33 Teletype.
Suggests the 3300 means it was 100 times as good as a Model 33.

They took it to a computer conference, and were getting very little 
traffic at their booth.  So they took some of the terminals around to
booths where other companies were demonstrating products using Model 33
machines, and substituted their terminals.  Immediate pickup in
interest, and they got lots of orders.

So with DEC using, at first, Model 33 Teletypes for their minicomputer
terminals, the idea might have been that if you application will fit on
the screen of the VT-05 then it will fit on a Teletype.

Now if we just had a time machine and could go back to 1930 and whisper
in Sterling Morton's ear that he needed to make the Model 15 an inch
wider...  And that would have been easy to do when the Model 28 was
being designed, and would give some extra stuntbox slots...  Then in
1963 the Teletype engineers would not have had to shoe-horn a sprocket
feed platen into the Model 35 to get it to handle paper 8 1/2 inches
wide after the sprocket feed strips were torn off.