In the early 1980s I worked as a computer operator. We had a couple of normal mainframes of the time, but we also had an old NCR 75 system which was all tactile switches dials and lights. And it booted from punch tape. You'd have to sit down at a teletype machine, create a new tape for boot every time, then run that through the computer, toggle switches and I loved that old thing.
In the 70s I worked for a government department my job was to prepare data. This was fed to the "Computer Room", in reality a set of 5 or six teleprinters, with operators and a supervisor. They converted our data into punch tape, which was then read over the dedicated phone line to a national centre. Men were not allowed into the room, except to hand in data! But before this, the first computer I used also used punch tape for output, a Ferranti Pegasus, the actual one I used is now in the London Science Museum!
Hands down, one of the best channels on all of UA-cam! Well done, guys! Thanks for sharing everything you do! TIL where "baud" came from (along with a LOT of other stuff, but that one especially).
Actually the order of Carriage Return and Line Feed is important and we always send CR/LF and not LF/CR. This is because moving the type-carriage back to the left hand side of the paper (or moving the paper in the case of old Creed machines) takes longer than one character time - so we send the LF second so the paper advances while the carriage is moving back. If CR came second then there's a risk the next character will be splooged across the paper as the carriage heads home!
Yep, if you did the LF first, you might find a character printed while the carriage was travelling back. Also, when I was working on Teletype machines and encoding the Telex answer back drum, I had to ensure it was CRLF, as overseas calls from Canada went through COTC (Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Commision) and if LFCR was used, the call would be rejected.
I worked in Cardiff Telex Exchange in 1971,great to see a Teleprinter 7B again. I moved onto Datel, first dealing with Modem 1 and 2,maximum speed for the Modem 2 was 200 bits per second.
I started working in the telecom industry in May 1972, shortly before my employer retired the last revenue Morse wire. I started out as an bench technician and spent my days overhauling teletype machines. Later on I moved into other parts of the company, working on the various voice and data carrier systems and later still, computers. By the time I left, 23 years later, I was in planning, where I planned the installation of telecom equipment, including stuff like fibre terminals, digital carriers, big switches for TDM networks, up to SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) that ran at 2.54 Gb/s over fibre and much more.
The teletype messages could be encrypted by using an extra pair of "key" tapes that had "relatively-prime" number lengths. The two tapes could generate sequences of up to something like 19,000 digits (maybe a lot more) before repeating. The baudot codes of the two tapes could be exclusive-or'd against each other, and then against the message you wanted to send. The receiving side would use the same tapes. This allowed multiple messages to be sent in batches, and the encryption was relatively secure. (X-OR logic: 0+0 = 0; 0+1 = 1; 1+0 = 1; 1+1 = 0)
I believe you're describing the Rockex system developed by Benjamin (Pat) Bayly. He worked at Camp X, a covert action (spy) camp in Ajax Ontario, and contributed a lot to the war effort in communications. After the war, he set up a company that built telecommunications equipment. A lot of the allied agents, in WW2, were trained at Camp X, including some of those for the OSS, which later evolved into the CIA. There are Wikipedia articles about both him and Rockex.
@@James_Knott I haven't heard of Rockex or Benjamin Bayly, but thank you for this information. I was describing a system patented by Gilbert Vernam of the U.S. around 1917 or 1918, and possibly implemented by AT&T for the U.S. Signal Corps. (U.S. patent 1,310,719)
On the subject of spark transmitters, Radio Malabar operated the world’s most powerful one (2400kW! Poulsen unit) around 1923 ish. Must have been quite an experience to witness it!
I had a friend over 20 years ago who collected teleprinters and experimented with them. When I met him, he had such a machine in his dorm room. He then built a device that could be used to operate the teleprinters over the normal telephone line. The telexphon(e)
I had a Creed 7 machine hooked up to my Ham Radio station, late 1970s, to send messages over radio. Eventually that changed to a computer. You briefly showed the R1155 and T1154 Marconi radio set, I had a set of those on the air as well with morse code. All this was a long time ago. But radio hams still use the Murray code to send messages.
I had a Teletype model 35ASR, which I connected to my IMSAI 8080, which was also connected to my ham radio transceiver and a 300B modem. In addition to building the computer, I also designed and built from scratch a board that could handle up to 8 serial ports, though only 3 were populated and used. I also wrote the software to connect it all and it could convert between Baudot & ASCII, send some canned messages, send continuous RY or U* for testing and more. It could also copy the received RTTY signal, either Baudot or ASCII to the M35 or trigger the tape reader to send out pre-type messages. I also built my RTTY demodulator, from a couple of magazine articles, and my transceiver, a Kenwood TS-820S had a built in FSK keyer. To top it all off, I had a 5 band dipole on top of my 15 floor apartment building. I was on the 14th floor.
I worked in repairing and maintaining the Telex teleprinters. 50 Baud was used on the Telex network and 75 Baud used for private wires. Those mechanical machines were really moving for that, always surprised they never shook themselves to pieces. When I started the network was still using +80V -80V for transmission, that woke you up if you touched the wires when it was transmitting. They later converted to a SCVF system using 4 tones ( 2 for customer, 2 for exchange).
That method you're describing for sending multiple teletype signals, over the same wire, is called Voice Frequency Carrier Telegraphy. The equipment I used to work on could carry as many as 18 circuits over 1 voice circuit.
For the Creed made teleprinters they originally used motors with governors to control speed, this was later replaced by a synchronous motors. Much less carbon dust flying around. There had been model 7A, think it used 1 bit stop code, rather than one and half. A model 8B was receive only, no keyboard. UK telex networks used different exchanges from the telephone exchanges.
My Dad's first real job was as a TTY technician back in the 60's. He collected a whole bunch of gear as it was decommissioned starting in the 80's, & wound up living in Southern California in the 2000's where he did teletype work for "The Fog of War" & "Flags of Our Fathers." Clint Eastwood even had him costumed for a bit part, but his tiny amount of footage wound up cut in editing. Anyhoo... Vive le TELETYPE!
Who did those little wheeled carts on friction compensated ramps with a ticker tape attached? Oh yes, it was physics and the one thing we know for certain about school physics experiments is that they, don't work. I know in America thy used to throw ticker tape out the windows on special occasions... but what was that actually for? Mitch, that was like a vigorous, refreshing shower of fascinating history. Thank You!
when i was a lot younger, had a creed 7b with tape reader. don't take the sound cover off, it'll deafen you. used to read the tapes from my old firm. they were just orders. nothing sensitive!
I have run across PLCs that had the capability of using Baudot code. I have often wondered if it influenced early electronic encryption systems that used 25 letters (J was omitted) arranged in groups of 5, but I guess not, since it was 32 characters.
I watch a number of channels using arcane equipment. Would love ro see rhe use of ridiculously arcane equipment to señd data ridiculous distances to acieve a simple task. I'm thinking having @curiousmarc use his machines to send a message rhrough the telephone exchange in order to play Sam's organ and associated not supposed to be midi devices.
I was in the army from 1999 to 2001. We used this system to transfer a huge number of messages. The machines were optical, from the 60s and 70s, and we had one NATO encryption machine that was hooked up to a pc to get the messages from the proprietary and secure lines. We also had 2 other encryption machines, that we used to manually program them, like ENIGMA and their input was a tape like that. If I remember correctly, the encryption machines manufacturer was Aroflex UA-8116 and Iro or Hero. I used to transfer every month a batch of pre programmed keys in tapes like these that you had to change every day to be able to read your messages.... I think they replaced this system after I left, around 2002....
Ah good point I should have mentioned those! Yeah somewhere between the Morse inker and fully realized teleprinters. Hughes’ printing telegraph inked letters on tape too - all of the machines are inspired by each other. As I’m sure you know during “ticker tape parades” people chucked old telegraph messages printed on paper tape out the window! Banking and trading were big drivers of the tech including encryption machines like enigma ✌️
Those were a bit different. The tape is wider than the Baudot punch tape and the data is printed on the tape, rather than holes punched. Also, the regular characters were printed on one level, with the shifted characters (numbers) printed below them. This enabled scanning the tape for the stock code on the top line and then finding the price on the lower line. This also saved having to send a space character, which took valuable time. Yes, that little bit of time was important to brokers, who were making the investment decisions. BTW, I spent about 2.5 years in the Toronto Stock Exchange where, among other things, I maintained ticker tape machines. Those machines were also used for reporting sports scores to radio stations. Former president Ronald Reagan once had a job at a radio station, reading the scores off the sports ticker, as they came in.
There were also news tickers which had very narrow paper tape, and printed only one line endlessly. Eventually it was replaced by tractor-feed paper for such endless feeds, but even after regular teletypes were invented AT&T sold those single-line units as well for the businesses which wanted them. (Which, again, tended to be newspapers and radio stations.) Some businesses kept using them for quite a while, mainly because it was much more compact to simply load-up a reel of paper on the device than it was to set-up a box of tractor-feed behind a full-page teleprinter, not to mention the print-head didn't need to move at all so it was mechanically simpler and cheaper to service. (And slightly quieter in operation, but that wasn't a significant factor at all.)
@@kaitlyn__L That narrow tape often had glue on one side. They were used for telegrams, where the tape would be moistened to stick the printed tape on a telegram form.
If I mail a letter, the postman cannot see what it says because it's in an envelope. But telegraph operators read _everyons_ business. Right? They had to translate it from Morse and then type it on a card or slip to give to the recipient. So, you would probably never send anything sensitive through a telegraph. Right?
That's why machines like Enigma were invented, to encrypt commercially sensitive data before you handed it over for transmission over public telegraph lines.
@xliquidflames. There was also pre agreed on code words, and even the use of books, although this would be obvious code since it was just groups of garbled letters. Still, it would be almost as hard to decrypt as a one time pad if you didn’t know which book was used. The history of the war between encryption/decryption goes hand in hand with the development of telegraphy, and is fascinating. The most famous episode was the WW II enigma intelligence war, but it probably started with the first alphabets. It definitely continues to this day, with things like the rumor that all commercially available public key encryption methods being dumbed down so the NSA can break them, and the race for quantum computing, which would render modern encryption methods obsolete.
There were codes that could be used. There were commercial code books where the prime purpose was to reduce the number of characters sent, but they didn't do much for secrecy as the code books were publicly available. Then there were codes used by governments, military, etc., to make the message secret. The German Enigma machine, in WW2, was an example.
@@xliquidflames During WW II plans for D-Day were sent through the British Postal Service, under the theory that all the spies would be looking at military communications, not the mail.
@@James_Knott you are not far off he invented almost everything that has to do with ac power seeing that he is the inventor of it that includes the electric motor and that motor design became the worldwide standard and is the main inspiration for elon musk do design the tesla cars
@@robot797 I was just having a bit of fun. I am well aware of how Tesla worked with Westinghouse to develop the AC power system. There's a road in Hamilton, Ontario named for him, where he built the first AC power station in Canada. I know there are claims about him inventing radio, but I don't think there were any examples.
@@James_Knott tesla made ac Westinghouse hired the patents of him And there is like all the proof that tesla made the Radio The Nobel price And the 11 patents that Marconi used to make and demonstrate his Radio Tesla's lab burned down a few days before he could demonstrate it
Absoloutely loving it thank you. You are such a good teacher and natural presenter
And the TELEX machine was kept so clean, typing to the waiting world
In the early 1980s I worked as a computer operator. We had a couple of normal mainframes of the time, but we also had an old NCR 75 system which was all tactile switches dials and lights. And it booted from punch tape. You'd have to sit down at a teletype machine, create a new tape for boot every time, then run that through the computer, toggle switches and I loved that old thing.
In the 70s I worked for a government department my job was to prepare data. This was fed to the "Computer Room", in reality a set of 5 or six teleprinters, with operators and a supervisor. They converted our data into punch tape, which was then read over the dedicated phone line to a national centre. Men were not allowed into the room, except to hand in data! But before this, the first computer I used also used punch tape for output, a Ferranti Pegasus, the actual one I used is now in the London Science Museum!
Cant wait to see more teleprinter content and the eventual inevitable internal telex network!
Me too!
Hands down, one of the best channels on all of UA-cam! Well done, guys! Thanks for sharing everything you do!
TIL where "baud" came from (along with a LOT of other stuff, but that one especially).
Cheers we enjoy making the videos!
Actually the order of Carriage Return and Line Feed is important and we always send CR/LF and not LF/CR. This is because moving the type-carriage back to the left hand side of the paper (or moving the paper in the case of old Creed machines) takes longer than one character time - so we send the LF second so the paper advances while the carriage is moving back. If CR came second then there's a risk the next character will be splooged across the paper as the carriage heads home!
Yep, if you did the LF first, you might find a character printed while the carriage was travelling back. Also, when I was working on Teletype machines and encoding the Telex answer back drum, I had to ensure it was CRLF, as overseas calls from Canada went through COTC (Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Commision) and if LFCR was used, the call would be rejected.
I worked in Cardiff Telex Exchange in 1971,great to see a Teleprinter 7B again.
I moved onto Datel, first dealing with Modem 1 and 2,maximum speed for the Modem 2 was 200 bits per second.
I know I started with 150 baud acoustic coupler, but was there something lower than that too? I don't remember.
I did a week long Telex course when I was 16 as an apprentice, never touched the stuff again
I started working in the telecom industry in May 1972, shortly before my employer retired the last revenue Morse wire. I started out as an bench technician and spent my days overhauling teletype machines. Later on I moved into other parts of the company, working on the various voice and data carrier systems and later still, computers. By the time I left, 23 years later, I was in planning, where I planned the installation of telecom equipment, including stuff like fibre terminals, digital carriers, big switches for TDM networks, up to SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) that ran at 2.54 Gb/s over fibre and much more.
The Marconi spark gap transmitter was used on the Titanic. Their transmissions were picked up by another ship and it allowed many lives to be saved.
In a future installment, you would do well to cover encryption coming into the picture.
The teletype messages could be encrypted by using an extra pair of "key" tapes that had "relatively-prime" number lengths. The two tapes could generate sequences of up to something like 19,000 digits (maybe a lot more) before repeating. The baudot codes of the two tapes could be exclusive-or'd against each other, and then against the message you wanted to send. The receiving side would use the same tapes. This allowed multiple messages to be sent in batches, and the encryption was relatively secure. (X-OR logic: 0+0 = 0; 0+1 = 1; 1+0 = 1; 1+1 = 0)
There would need to be a big effort to decrypt such messages without the key. One could say it would be Colossal.
@@dafoex Yeah, that'd be da Bombe!
I believe you're describing the Rockex system developed by Benjamin (Pat) Bayly. He worked at Camp X, a covert action (spy) camp in Ajax Ontario, and contributed a lot to the war effort in communications. After the war, he set up a company that built telecommunications equipment. A lot of the allied agents, in WW2, were trained at Camp X, including some of those for the OSS, which later evolved into the CIA. There are Wikipedia articles about both him and Rockex.
@@James_Knott I haven't heard of Rockex or Benjamin Bayly, but thank you for this information. I was describing a system patented by Gilbert Vernam of the U.S. around 1917 or 1918, and possibly implemented by AT&T for the U.S. Signal Corps. (U.S. patent 1,310,719)
Thanks so much Mitch!! This was very interesting! Keep 'em coming!
On the subject of spark transmitters, Radio Malabar operated the world’s most powerful one (2400kW! Poulsen unit) around 1923 ish. Must have been quite an experience to witness it!
Crikey. I wonder how hot the room got!
I had a friend over 20 years ago who collected teleprinters and experimented with them.
When I met him, he had such a machine in his dorm room.
He then built a device that could be used to operate the teleprinters over the normal telephone line. The telexphon(e)
I had a Creed 7 machine hooked up to my Ham Radio station, late 1970s, to send messages over radio. Eventually that changed to a computer. You briefly showed the R1155 and T1154 Marconi radio set, I had a set of those on the air as well with morse code. All this was a long time ago. But radio hams still use the Murray code to send messages.
I had a Teletype model 35ASR, which I connected to my IMSAI 8080, which was also connected to my ham radio transceiver and a 300B modem. In addition to building the computer, I also designed and built from scratch a board that could handle up to 8 serial ports, though only 3 were populated and used. I also wrote the software to connect it all and it could convert between Baudot & ASCII, send some canned messages, send continuous RY or U* for testing and more. It could also copy the received RTTY signal, either Baudot or ASCII to the M35 or trigger the tape reader to send out pre-type messages. I also built my RTTY demodulator, from a couple of magazine articles, and my transceiver, a Kenwood TS-820S had a built in FSK keyer. To top it all off, I had a 5 band dipole on top of my 15 floor apartment building. I was on the 14th floor.
I worked in repairing and maintaining the Telex teleprinters. 50 Baud was used on the Telex network and 75 Baud used for private wires. Those mechanical machines were really moving for that, always surprised they never shook themselves to pieces. When I started the network was still using +80V -80V for transmission, that woke you up if you touched the wires when it was transmitting. They later converted to a SCVF system using 4 tones ( 2 for customer, 2 for exchange).
The lowest speed I saw was 45.4B, though 50B Telex was far more common. Some machines wire 110B ASCII.
I'm imagining people manually punching messages with the editors. I can imagine it being a prank on newbies in a telegraph office.
For once, I actually managed to watch a Telephone Tuesdays episode on a Tuesday! Another extremely interesting video. Keep them coming.
Oh that AOINSHRDLZ looks very similar to the old ETAOIN SHRDLU stack from early printing machines. 6:35
I got started in telephony and telegraphy in 1977 so you are up to my experience :)
Not sure why, but it seems insane to me that, effectively, teletypes existed _before_ mechanical typewriters!
Please do not under estimate us, we're all nerd's folowing this channel.
The more details You could provide about these amazing machines the better ❤
That method you're describing for sending multiple teletype signals, over the same wire, is called Voice Frequency Carrier Telegraphy. The equipment I used to work on could carry as many as 18 circuits over 1 voice circuit.
For the Creed made teleprinters they originally used motors with governors to control speed, this was later replaced by a synchronous motors. Much less carbon dust flying around.
There had been model 7A, think it used 1 bit stop code, rather than one and half. A model 8B was receive only, no keyboard.
UK telex networks used different exchanges from the telephone exchanges.
Hayyy father brought me those strips with holes for me to play from his work❤i miss him so much
My Dad's first real job was as a TTY technician back in the 60's. He collected a whole bunch of gear as it was decommissioned starting in the 80's, & wound up living in Southern California in the 2000's where he did teletype work for "The Fog of War" & "Flags of Our Fathers." Clint Eastwood even had him costumed for a bit part, but his tiny amount of footage wound up cut in editing. Anyhoo... Vive le TELETYPE!
I love these videos! Mitch is top drawer🐶❤️💗🙌🙌🙌
Working on electromechanical teletypes was no joke but there was always a punchline………
I spent my first 6 months in telecom as a bench technician, overhauling Teletypes.
Fantastic love it.
Who did those little wheeled carts on friction compensated ramps with a ticker tape attached? Oh yes, it was physics and the one thing we know for certain about school physics experiments is that they, don't work.
I know in America thy used to throw ticker tape out the windows on special occasions... but what was that actually for?
Mitch, that was like a vigorous, refreshing shower of fascinating history. Thank You!
Just to add a bit (lol) - the perf tape hole spacing across baudot tape is exactly the same as perf boards used for prototyping circuits.
when i was a lot younger, had a creed 7b with tape reader. don't take the sound cover off, it'll deafen you. used to read the tapes from my old firm. they were just orders. nothing sensitive!
I have run across PLCs that had the capability of using Baudot code. I have often wondered if it influenced early electronic encryption systems that used 25 letters (J was omitted) arranged in groups of 5, but I guess not, since it was 32 characters.
I watch a number of channels using arcane equipment. Would love ro see rhe use of ridiculously arcane equipment to señd data ridiculous distances to acieve a simple task. I'm thinking having @curiousmarc use his machines to send a message rhrough the telephone exchange in order to play Sam's organ and associated not supposed to be midi devices.
That's Frequency Shift Keying (FSK), not FKS.
oops thanks!
Nice one Mitch, what’s next?
I was in the army from 1999 to 2001. We used this system to transfer a huge number of messages. The machines were optical, from the 60s and 70s, and we had one NATO encryption machine that was hooked up to a pc to get the messages from the proprietary and secure lines. We also had 2 other encryption machines, that we used to manually program them, like ENIGMA and their input was a tape like that. If I remember correctly, the encryption machines manufacturer was Aroflex UA-8116 and Iro or Hero. I used to transfer every month a batch of pre programmed keys in tapes like these that you had to change every day to be able to read your messages.... I think they replaced this system after I left, around 2002....
Need to keep these as masters to copy after WW3 😉
First working program I wrote was on paper tape.
Where did the "ticker tape" (stock numbers) fit into this development?
Ah good point I should have mentioned those! Yeah somewhere between the Morse inker and fully realized teleprinters. Hughes’ printing telegraph inked letters on tape too - all of the machines are inspired by each other. As I’m sure you know during “ticker tape parades” people chucked old telegraph messages printed on paper tape out the window! Banking and trading were big drivers of the tech including encryption machines like enigma ✌️
Those were a bit different. The tape is wider than the Baudot punch tape and the data is printed on the tape, rather than holes punched. Also, the regular characters were printed on one level, with the shifted characters (numbers) printed below them. This enabled scanning the tape for the stock code on the top line and then finding the price on the lower line. This also saved having to send a space character, which took valuable time. Yes, that little bit of time was important to brokers, who were making the investment decisions.
BTW, I spent about 2.5 years in the Toronto Stock Exchange where, among other things, I maintained ticker tape machines. Those machines were also used for reporting sports scores to radio stations. Former president Ronald Reagan once had a job at a radio station, reading the scores off the sports ticker, as they came in.
There were also news tickers which had very narrow paper tape, and printed only one line endlessly. Eventually it was replaced by tractor-feed paper for such endless feeds, but even after regular teletypes were invented AT&T sold those single-line units as well for the businesses which wanted them. (Which, again, tended to be newspapers and radio stations.)
Some businesses kept using them for quite a while, mainly because it was much more compact to simply load-up a reel of paper on the device than it was to set-up a box of tractor-feed behind a full-page teleprinter, not to mention the print-head didn't need to move at all so it was mechanically simpler and cheaper to service. (And slightly quieter in operation, but that wasn't a significant factor at all.)
@@kaitlyn__L That narrow tape often had glue on one side. They were used for telegrams, where the tape would be moistened to stick the printed tape on a telegram form.
If I mail a letter, the postman cannot see what it says because it's in an envelope. But telegraph operators read _everyons_ business. Right? They had to translate it from Morse and then type it on a card or slip to give to the recipient. So, you would probably never send anything sensitive through a telegraph. Right?
That's why machines like Enigma were invented, to encrypt commercially sensitive data before you handed it over for transmission over public telegraph lines.
@xliquidflames.
There was also pre agreed on code words, and even the use of books, although this would be obvious code since it was just groups of garbled letters. Still, it would be almost as hard to decrypt as a one time pad if you didn’t know which book was used.
The history of the war between encryption/decryption goes hand in hand with the development of telegraphy, and is fascinating.
The most famous episode was the WW II enigma intelligence war, but it probably started with the first alphabets.
It definitely continues to this day, with things like the rumor that all commercially available public key encryption methods being dumbed down so the NSA can break them, and the race for quantum computing, which would render modern encryption methods obsolete.
There were codes that could be used. There were commercial code books where the prime purpose was to reduce the number of characters sent, but they didn't do much for secrecy as the code books were publicly available. Then there were codes used by governments, military, etc., to make the message secret. The German Enigma machine, in WW2, was an example.
@@xliquidflames During WW II plans for D-Day were sent through the British Postal Service, under the theory that all the spies would be looking at military communications, not the mail.
HERE WE GO It might Be a computer Iff
What does Bordeaux have to do with telegraphy? 🙂
That is a lot to take in. 🤯
it aint marcony that invented the radio
it is tesla
he even holds the nobel price for it
I thought he invented an electric car. 🙂
@@James_Knott you are not far off
he invented almost everything that has to do with ac power
seeing that he is the inventor of it
that includes the electric motor
and that motor design became the worldwide standard
and is the main inspiration for elon musk do design the tesla cars
@@robot797 I was just having a bit of fun. I am well aware of how Tesla worked with Westinghouse to develop the AC power system. There's a road in Hamilton, Ontario named for him, where he built the first AC power station in Canada. I know there are claims about him inventing radio, but I don't think there were any examples.
@@James_Knott tesla made ac
Westinghouse hired the patents of him
And there is like all the proof that tesla made the Radio
The Nobel price
And the 11 patents that Marconi used to make and demonstrate his Radio
Tesla's lab burned down a few days before he could demonstrate it