My exposure to teletypes was in college electrical engineering classes -- I learned Basic programming on a 33-ASR connected to a minicomputer. Also learned fortran using punch cards (also amazing machines). And I also have some fond memories of an IBM selectric terminal I once had, that was equipped with a built-in computer interface unit (a dozen boards in DTL or RTL logic, and a 300-baud modem) -- wish I still had that.

I also had an interest in early microcomputers. A few of us even taped up a copy of the Apple II pcb, got some boards made, and made a dozen working copies of the machine (before the third-party clones were available). It was the only affordable way to get one at the time! Wish I still had that one as well. I used the modem board from the Selectric terminal with the Apple II to dial in for late-night programming classes. Computing was fun back then -- computers mostly piss me off these days. My current computing interest is in moving everything to Linux, and dumping everything Microsoft. Maybe even a new Mac would be fun -- I did quite a bit with the early Macs.

I worked in the seismic industry for a while, on data-acquisition systems used in oil exploration. Mostly analog circuit design, circuit simulation, and microcontroller programing. Fun and rewarding design challenges, and a great bunch of people to work with. Later I went to Cray Research supercomputers -- amazing machines, great money, but a most unchallenging place to work. They thought they were tops (which they were for a while), but ignored competition from clusters of high-end workstations etc. They were bought by Silicon Graphics for something like 800 million, who ended up dumping them for something like 50 million. But I digress.

I was originally not looking to get into teletype collecting -- I just wanted to get an M33-ASR for nostalgic fun. I found the greenkeys email group a couple of years ago, and started getting more interested in the old machines that were being discussed. I was bummed to find that the M33 I liked so much, was Teletype's crappiest design. Even so, the M33 has its place in computing history. To me the M33-ASR was the key model that bridged the gap from the wonderful days of electromechanical machines, to early electronics and computers. It was a great co-existance of technologies. Sort of like that other special slice of time when nixie tubes ruled. Now if teletype had only put some nixies in a teletype -- that would be a fun piece.

But I also had this odd little Teletype machine that I got over 25 years ago, and had in storage. The folks on greenkeys helped me identify it as a model 31 tape printer, and helped me get it running. Then I was hooked on the earlier baudot machines, and got a few more. I eventually got the 33 I was originally looking for. Anyway, the "tty-bug," as John White calls it, bit me in the ass, and I've been accumulating them ever since.

M14-TD Transmitter-Distributor	M14-KTR Keyboard Typing Reperf	M15-KSR Page Printer
M28-KSR Page Printer	M28-RO Page Printer	M28 Transmitter-Distributor
M31-KSR Tape Printer	M33-ASR Page Printer