It is hard to imagine that there was a time when having a keyboard and screen readily available was a real problem for people who wanted to experiment with computers. In the 1970s, if you wanted a terminal, you might well have built a [Don Lancaster] “TV Typewriter” and the companion “low cost keyboard.” [Artem Kalinchuk] wanted to recreate this historic keyboard and, you know what? He did! Take a look at the video below.
The first task was to create a PCB from the old artwork from Radio Electronics magazine. [Artem] did the hard work but discovered that the original board expected a very specific kind of key. So, he created a variant that takes modern MX keyboard switches, which is nice. He does sell the PCBs, but you can also find the design files on GitHub.
Not only were the TV typewriters and related projects popular, but they also inspired many similar projects and products from early computer companies.
The board is really just a holder for keys, some jumper wires, and an edge connector. You still need an ASCII encoder board, which [Artem] also recreates. That board is simple, using diodes, a few transistors, and a small number of simple ICs.
If you weren’t there, part of installing old software was writing the code needed to read and write to your terminal. No kidding. We miss [Don Lancaster]. We wonder how many TV typewriters were built, especially if you include modern recreations.
“It is hard to imagine that there was a time when having a keyboard and screen readily available was a real problem for people who wanted to experiment with computers.”
Really? Why is that so? I knew about ASCII keyboards since when I was little.
They were being mentioned in my dad’s amateur radio magazines from the 70s and 80s. There had been a lot of advertisements for them.
I mean, ASCII keyboards and ASCII character generators were common components for assembling your own glass terminal.
And the mailbox/BBS scene was very big in the 80s, or so I always thought.
Which weren’t long ago yet, by the way, just a few decades away from now.
Last but not least, the Nintendo NES from the 80s isn’t much younger but widely known, nevertheless.
About every video game fan (“gamer”) has heard about the NES.
So why are ASCII keyboards thought so much lesser being known then? 🤔
Anyway, I would like to say that the replica turned out quite good!
Well done! 🙂👍
If you were born in the mid 60’s or before then no, you generally did not know about or have access to ascii keyboards or any real computing resources. A few large offices would have Teletype model 33’s attached to something room sized. You can’t imagine how transformative the 70’s were.
I see, my bad. I think you’re right. I always forget about the diesel age from before they had electric power. :(
Funny, you never seem to forget about the electromechanical Z3 and the totally peaceful group of people who funded it for a totally peaceful industry during a time in history where there was no way it would have even been considered for use for anything other than totally peaceful purposes.
I know I know, you don’t know what to say …
The Z3, ah yes. My bad. I remember now. If memory serves, it was powered by 200 hamsters, though.
There was separate floor with the hamster wheels, powering the generator.
They were communist hamsters, I think, they had redish-brownish fur.
I’m glad we could preserve such tiny bits of history!
you’re really young 😉
Psst! Please don’t tell my parents I’m here! 😰 I should be in bed by now! 😟
Seeing “Lancaster” in the Title, I first thought of the British WWII bomber.
Rest in Peace Don!
Well now I’m imagining a cyberpunk Lancaster bomber and have to go and have a lay down
I remember back in 1983, after getting a TI-99/4A for Christmas (1982), searching for a composite cable to plug into a Montgomery Ward 13-inch TV we got as a monitor, that had composite in, for better-than-RF-modulator video. I was 10 and didn’t really know where to find such a thing, etc. Well, my parents were big flea-market fans and we were in a neighboring town and went into a flea-market there that was setup very rustically, with halls and little booth/rooms separated by plywood and chickenwire. One of the booths wasn’t antique furniture or crystal candy dishes, but a guy hawking electronics. He had cables, bare disk drive mechanisms, CRTs — and a table full of bare keyboards like the one above, with ribbon cables leading off.
I asked what they were for, he told me when you build a computer, you need a keyboard. I was not yet aware of the process or history much before the TI that I had, and remember wondering how you would plug that into a computer — and did you have to build your own enclosure, etc?
I was but a fledgling nerd back then, and that memory stuck with me. (The guy said he would be getting in the cable I needed during the week, and I got my parents to drive me back there the next weekend for the cable – but he didn’t have it / didn’t seem to recall my asking after it the week before (I finally found one at Circuit City closer to home.).)
“and did you have to build your own enclosure, etc?”
After discovering the same thing, I formed a deep regret for not learning wood-working before the craft seem to lose fashion in middle-school shop class. I suppose in our current times of 3d printing and cheap injection molding I shouldn’t complain. But the look of those 60s-70s custom enclosures still has a special fascination that seems sadly lost to time.
Most of them are crude planks of wood salvaged from cabinets or furniture and if your lucky a razor sharp peice of sheet metal bent by your uncle bills armpit then cut out with a rabid rat!
Outside of some fine examples held up in pictures we all know, the vast majority of them make homer simpsons spice rack look like it should belong in the Louvre
My father and my grand grand father would disagree, I think.
When they were young they had built almost everything using a fretsaw and wooden boards (from local carpenter).
My father had participated a metal working shop class at technical college (?) – not sure about the English term.
That being said, they both weren’t from US (plastic and fastfood country) and had grown up in more rural, more traditional time/environment were these things used to be normal, still.
Little towns, if you will, with bigger cities not too far away.
The type of towns or suburban areas with those old professions and small shops.
They also read books and were eager to learn (they could read and write).
Radio books from early 20th centuries did describe in great detail how to build a shortwave listener’s station, a ham shack. Way down to the furniture, the workplace.
And the books didn’t instruct the reader to take apart existing furniture for that.
The authors at the time had a basic set of good manners, still.
They rather had included drawings (schematics) and list of material.
The measurements were metric, by the way.
That being said, they didn’t assume the readers were pros, though.
In the 1920s, people didn’t have our education level and had to learn by doing. They had to be autodidacts, rather, like Macgyver. ;)
The radio amateurs in the 1970s and 1980s did basically same thing; except that they might have used a little electric saw here and there for convenience.
They got some wooden boards from hardware store, either real wood or plywood and did get going.
Just like model makers still do sometimes, when they work with fine balsa wood.
And not all of them had been teached how to do it. They rather learned and improved over time.
It is resist for EMP?
Don’s CMOS & TTL books should be essential reading. Sure, you can do the same stuff with a single microcontroller but his creative use of logic gates was magical. I remember emailing him around 2012 and asking about one of his designs in his book. his reply was bewilderment, wondering why I didn’t just use one of these new fangled raspberry pi’s to do the same thing. Gave me a chuckle.
I never recreated any of the more complex circuits he described but it’s great seeing someone doing so today. I still have heavily worn copies of TV Typewriter and his cookbooks. There is a lot of inspiration and ideas hiding between those pages. Have a peak for yourself on archive.org and go check out Mr. Lancaster’s website at http://tinaja.com/
Addendum: The last post he made on his website in 2020 https://www.tinaja.com/whtnu20.shtml
He discussed many current events for the time. It’s an interesting read.
“Don’s CMOS & TTL books should be essential reading.”
… and his active filter cookbook.
I built a Lancaster keyboard encoder, although I was lucky enough to find a keyboard matrix with the right layout (single quote a shifted-seven! You don’t see THAT any more.) Mine was wire-wrapped, based on the circuit in The CMOS Cookbook. I had fun doing the diode logic for the various special keys (RETURN == ctrl+M, backspace = ctrl+H, etc.)
It worked fine with the weird (Z8-controlled!) TVT board I bought. It should be still in storage.
I built a Lancaster keyboard encoder, although I was lucky enough to find a keyboard matrix with the right layout (single quote a shifted-seven! You don’t see THAT any more.) Mine was wire-wrapped, based on the circuit in The CMOS Cookbook. I had fun doing the diode logic for the various special keys (RETURN == ctrl+M, backspace = ctrl+H, etc.)
It worked fine with the weird (Z8-controlled!) TVT board I bought. It should be still in storage.