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The ASR 33
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Nowadays, it isn't too hard to find
someone who has never seen one of these. That wasn't true 25 years
ago. These things were everywhere! If you watched the evening news,
you would see and hear them or a similar model clanking away in the
background as part of the AP Wire Service. Western Union used them
to send messages all over the world, sort of pre-email, email. They
were the terminal of choice for minicomputer owners. They also
gained huge favor amongst computer hobbyist since, at the time, they
offered nearly the only practical way possible to generate hardcopy
output from a micro. Timeshare users also used the ASR (Automatic
Send and Receive) teletypes to connect though a modem to a mainframe
computer. My first experience with one of these was on a timeshare
service at my high school in the mid '70s.
The ASR 33 included a paper tape reader and punch. Very useful
for the '70s hobbyist as a means to store and retrieve programs.
Floppy disk storage was far beyond the budget of most personal
computer owners at the time, and hard disks were only a distant
dream. The paper tape media was a durable and reliable means of
small program storage, but a longer program like BASIC would take
about fifteen minutes to load. This got old very fast, and hobbyist
were soon looking for better ways to work. When video terminals,
cassette storage and dot matrix printers were developed, the long
life of the teletype machine was drawing to a close. |
| My ASR 33
I picked up my 33 from a salvage company just hours before it was
to be destroyed. It was in fair condition overall, but it took quite
some time to track down the needed parts for repairs. The most
difficult part to find was the print head. Although it had a usable
head in place when I got it, it didn't print a few characters
legible enough to suit me. The print hammer had worn down the lower
half of about a half dozen characters, and it drove me nuts to try
to read them! It now hums perfectly along, connected to my Mark 8
Minicomputer. I also have a complete set of service manuals. I had
planned to scan them and put them on the web, but someone
beat me to it!! I also have an ASR-32, which is the almost identical
Baudot
version. Pictures for that will be a long time coming. |
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