[Rex Malik] didn’t need an alarm clock. That’s because he had one of two “home computer terminals” next to his bed and, as you can see in the video below, it made quite a racket. The terminal looks like an ASR33 with some modifications. In 1967, it was quite a novelty and, of course, it didn’t have any real processing power. It connected to an “invisible brain” ten miles away.
What do you do with a computer in 1967? Well, it looks like you could trade stocks. It also apparently managed his shopping list and calendar. His young son also learned some letters and numbers. We’d love to hear from the young [Mr. Malik] today to find out what kind of computer he’s using now.
The BBC announcer made some fair predictions. One day, they supposed, every home would have a computer “point” to plug in a rented terminal. They were saying the rent was, at that time, £30 a week. That was relatively steep in those days. Especially considering it couldn’t play Doom or download cat memes.
We couldn’t help but notice that [Malik’s] bedroom had a single bed. With the TeleType going off at all hours, we aren’t really surprised. While it might not be able to download cat memes, the old TeleTypes could download a text-based web page. Well, once there was a web, anyway. This beats the kitchen computer, although we have to admit that at least the kitchen device was really a computer in your home.
There’s no tape reader/punch, so it’s a modified KSR33.
I used to repair them, and had my own in my dorm room at college. No mods that I can see, but some options you normally didn’t see (check the Bulletin 1187B parts catalog). It’s a standard KSR-33 ordered wth some factory options:
Pinfeed platen assy
CTRL and SHIFT keys deleted
Custom call control unit plate
autostart box somewhere in the base
Leased line modem in base?
Second one has a UK keyboard – note the symbol over the “4” key
Well, if you look only the machine by the bed is a KSR. The one by the bookshelf he uses later and the one the kid uses is an ASR33. I’m not sure why he had two. When I wrote this I at first thought it was a KSR and then saw the punch/reader. But now looking back, it is clear there are two different machines in the video!
The ASR33 didn’t have any processing power: it was purely mechanical.
When I go to The National Museum of Computing to see the world’s oldest operating computer (the WITCH) and Colossus replica etc, I try to have a quick go on an ASR33. The clunk of the key depressing followed by a 100ms delay before the character is thumped onto paper brings back my youth :)
Touch typing? In your dreams! Two fingered at best. The keys need a lot of force and the travel is surprisingly long.
BTW, if you haven’t been to TNMoC, just go. Sometimes the people there will whip out the >A0 blueprint schematics and discuss them with you :)
Yes I was there a bit ago and had a great long chat with a ham who was working on EDSAC. I wish I could remember his name. He pulled out a logic analyzer and we talked many fine points of that old machine.
Ah, for me it was the Elliott 803B, the first computer I used in an HLL and assembler.
I still remember the light bulb going on, when I figured out what the Algol60 compiler was doing. Met Tony Hoare a few decades later too :)
I actually could use all 10 fingers on 33 and 35 TTYs.
But I learned to type on an ancient Underwood mechanical typewriter.
£30 a week in 1967 is £480 today, that’s ~25k a year which is above minimum wage – more than a little pricey!
Memories … but I don’t miss all the noise of my KSR33 … maybe even my tinnitus was seeded back then?
The force needed to engage a keystroke was used to make everything happen mechanically. Paper width determined TTY carriage return (or a Cathode Ray Tube monitor’s electron beam gun horizontal sync pulse refresh rate). The return key on your PC keyboard is from this typewriter carriage return. Silicon oil spray (as specced by IBM) was imperative in the lubrication of these TTY machines. Every other lubricant gums or attracts dust or drips.
“In 20 years time there will be special computer terminal points in newly built houses”
Funny how right and wrong that was.
1967.
2 years ago Donald Davies invented the Packet Switched Network, indeed, Networking.
No custom point to point copper was ever needed, we just used the existing telephone network and only built custom backhaul.
Donald’s work and some French data science was combined with the idea of a heterogeneous network by the Americans to create the Internet.
So in 1987, the telephone socket replaced this idea.
10 years later DSL and Cable came along and suddenly we DID have “dedicated computer ports” sort of. kinda.
Then 20 years after THAT we got Fibre To The Premises.
A literal bespoke Computer Port, no phone, no cable, no TV, doesn’t use any existing network at all.
A custom built house-to-internet-to-house fiber optic digital network which will be added to new build houses.
Predicted by this guy in 1967.
I built my current house in 1993. I asked the sparky to run two 4-pair CAT3 cables from each room to the basement. I had scored some reels of cable from the scrap pile at work. I wired them to four “66 blocks” in the basement and from there to my telephone line and a 10BASE-T Ethernet router and cable modem.
Fast forward 32 years (has it really been that long?) and that cable is still providing connectivity (at Gigabit rates) in my house. It connects my WiFi hotspots, my SIP phones and some other random stuff. All the connectors are now RJ45, since the telephone outlets aren’t used much any more.
What seemed like a strange request when the house was built has been a very useful addition. Wired is still faster than WiFi, so I prefer it. My son agreed and wired his house as well (CAT5 this time).
POE turns out to be very handy.
I’m surprised that works at all. You must have gotten some really good quality cable. I tried to use a short run of CAT3 for ethernet once and could only get it to connect at 10M.
I’ve used cat3 for Ethernet a couple of times, when nothing else was in the wall. It didn’t pass cat5 certification, of course, but it worked well enough to get by.
I recently learned of the existence of POLRE switches, used to run IP phones over legacy cat3 cabling. Somehow they cram PoE and an Ethernet connection over a SINGLE CAT3 PAIR. to allow an IP phone to replace an analog phone without recabling. A dongle is required at the device end, with a 6 position 2 conductor (6P2C) socket on one side and an 8P8C jack on the other. Mitel makes ’em.
When I was 10, in 1977, I was using a teletype terminal like this to program in basic on a remote computer. What an immense waste of paper it was! Just editing you program took numerous pages of the tractor hole paper, which was 18 inches wide. Ah…but that thud…thud…thud of the printing head was magical. Loved it!
But paper was cheap back then. That was my high school computer teachers motto “paper is cheap!”
I think it’s funny that some TV newscasts start with music/sound effects that are reminiscent of a teletype long after those devices ceased to be used. Mind you, TV newscasts are going the way of the dinosaur themselves.
Not to mention the Enterprise on the original Star Trek!
Maybe not a cat meme, but my father would print out ASCII-art Snoopy calendars for me when the FAA would send a terminal to our home for him to do some extra-hours work.
Awesome! Those are some great memories. 😎
Btw: The predecessor was RTTY art, I think.
Maybe some more classic text art can be found online by using “RTTY” in the search engine.
I don’t think I have the printout, or the card deck, for EBCDIC art of a woman.
We got away with that back in high school, on an IBM 1130
A long time ago, and a public high school.