asr-33

3 Articles

Retrotechtacular: The Noisy Home Computer From 1967

September 8, 2025 by 22 Comments

[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.

Continue reading “Retrotechtacular: The Noisy Home Computer From 1967” →

Pre-Web Hardware Connects To The Web

February 21, 2015 by 7 Comments

We’re not quite to the 25th anniversary of the world wide web, but that doesn’t mean the greatest innovation in information distribution since [Gutenberg]’s press can’t be celebrated a bit early, does it? [Suhayl] is throwing some of his hardware into the ring, and loading up the first web page with a modem from the mid 1960s and a teletype from the mid 70s. No, no sane person would have ever done this 25 years ago, but it’s neat to watch in any event.

The hardware [Suhayl] is using includes a Livermore Data Systems modem. It’s a finely crafted wooden box with an acoustic coupler on top, and a DB-25 connector on a side that connects to a terminal or computer via RS-232. If that Livermore Data Systems acoustic coupler modem looks familiar, you might be right. This modem was demoed back in 2009 by [phreakmonkey]. It’s an impressive little box that can connect to a remote system at up to 300 baud.

The I/O is handled by an ASR-33 teletype. This was the standard way to connect to computers and mainframes before we were all blessed with video terminals and TV typewriters. The whole setup connects to a Unix system with a much more familiar Hayes modem, runs a text-only browser, and retrieves the first web page as it was served up at CERN some 25 years ago.

Only Losers Text Message On Cellphones – This Guy Carries His Own Teletype For That

August 2, 2011 by 21 Comments

Yes, that’s an SMS text messaging device. [Mdziewie] decided that texting on a regular cellphone was too boring and decided to build himself an old-school SMS gateway. Here’s a translated link but the formatting of the forum post gets screwed up with the machine translation.

The device he’s using is an ASR-33 Teletype machine, which was introduced to the market in 1963. It is connected to a GSM modem via an ARM microcontroller, the STM32F103. This chip, along with a few electronic components, let [Mdziewie] design an interface that doesn’t require alteration to the ancient hardware. The forum post linked above includes video of this sending and receiving texts. It’s awesomely loud as it hammers away at the paper, and seems to work as expected.

If you hunger for one of your own but don’t have half-century old equipment there’s still hope. Find yourself a typewriter and turn it into a teletype machine.