[GreenKeys] Teletypes seen in the old wild...

[D Smith]

Hello Wayne,nice to meet another WU tech here!

Yes, the State Police NCIC network was a dedicated line that usually ran
down to your Sec of State's office, that ran a query to your state SOS
database and if coded correctly, onto National NCIC in washing dc.

I remember being able to put a couple of characters in the queries and get
a "test" back that did NOT cause a "HIT" so the Police wouldn't
be notified that you were just testing.

In the beginning I liked the mechanical repairs of the TTY's but did not
like the electronics, the trouble shooting was something to be desired
if I remember correctly, but as I gained experience I was able to do ok
with it.

In around 1975 WU got a contract with a financial company and sent us to
IBM Selectric School. Someone built a relay device under the carriage
and their own electronic box as an interface. Interesting school v/s
Teletype - But the real nightmare was the mechanics of the form guide
contraption
on top of the selectric.

73 de K9DS, Danny





On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 10:50 AM WAYNE <teletypeparts at comcast.net> wrote:

> When I worked at WU in Wichita, KS my route included a State Police office
> with a 35 ASR.  NCIC was its designation.  I believe it was on a dedicated
> line but not sure.
>
> It had a lot of bells and whistles and I was very careful when I did the
> routine maintenance.  Never had a trouble and glad I didnt.
>
> This was in the early 1970's.
>
> 73,
>
> Wayne
> KB1FDW
>
> On 04/21/2026 10:19 PM EDT D Smith via GreenKeys <
> greenkeys at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> One thing to remember when looking at those TTY's. The baudot models had 3
> rows of keys on the keyboard,
> and the ASCII models have 4. Quite a few of the police stations had the
> model 35 ASR. The electronics were
> in the stand below and is what usually we were working on when we were
> called to trouble shoot a problem.
>
> When I went down state Illinois, I had about 3 IL State Police Radio
> stations that had them, they were always
> out in the boonies away from town. I think the Sheriffs had them as well.
> They were later replaced by a small
> computer looking terminal device called INCOTERM. It was actually a small
> computer with magnetic core
> memory. It required the operator to type in about 65 characters without
> mistakes to boot across a network
> from Springfield, IL State Police HQ. I never did see the local police
> pick those computers up to replace the
> model 35 ASR.  Hams were only allowed BAUDOT at the time, I did have an
> 'excess'  Model 33 teletype
> hooked up for RTTY back then, but I used a home brew 8080 computer with a
> translator program I wrote
> to use BAUDOT on the air. (That's a nother whole story)
>
> 73 de K9DS, Danny
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 11:22 AM Robert Nickels <ranickels at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> On 4/21/2026 11:44 AM, D Smith wrote:
>
> Doug is correct. That other TTY is a model 35.
>
> Thanks Doug and Danny.   I have a vague recollection of the Model 35 but
> of course the model 33 was ubiquitous when I started messing with
> microcomputers in the 70s.   Although few hobbyists could afford them!
>
> I know that ASCII was just starting to come into widespread use in the
> late 60s or early 70s when this photo was taken,  so it makes sense that it
> was connected to a more modern system.    The village of River Forest was
> quite wealthy, being the home of Paul Harvey, the founder of the Mars candy
> company, and numerous mobsters -   so they could afford all the newest toys
> ;-)
>
> 73, Bob W9RAN
>
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