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Mark-8 Minicomputer
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ASR-33
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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.
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| 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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Me (on right) with my Teletype at the VCF 6.0
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