#asr-33

[commodorez]

A pair of PDP-8's, a VT-100 type terminal, and an ASR-33 teletype - VCF Midwest 18

[commodorez]

ASR-33 Teletype & Singer Friden Model 80

Large Scale Systems Museum (LSSM) - mact.io - Pittsburgh, PA

[commodorez]

My Data General Nova 1200 (right) meets its old coworker from Jackson Type (a typesetting operation in Michigan), a Digital Computer Controls D-116 that belongs to my friend Nevets. The DCC-116 is a direct clone of the Nova 1200, so the two are functionally identical and can use the same cards.

The cool part is that both of our machines are now running modern power supplies that we worked together to design and implement. Mine was partially broken at the show, and we spent some time debugging, before I realized the parts I need weren't going to be available at the show. Meanwhile, my friend's DCC-116 ran great all weekend long, running BASIC from an ASR-33 teletype.

I spent some time entering a fun demo program, which he punched to paper tape for me to take home after the show. That third front panel between our two machines belongs to Forgotten Machines, and was running a front panel tester board in a demo mode.

Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 17

[commodorez]

Justin “DJ” Scott also had the only other Altair 680 I have ever seen in my life.  It was in exquisite condition.  He had it connected to an ASR-33 (not pictured), a very impressive “smart” paper tape reader, and a few other toys -- one of which will follow in the next post.

For those unaware, the MITS Altair 680 is the Motorola 6800 powered cousin of the Altair 8800.  It’s front panel is noticeably different, as it was designed to be connected to a terminal for proper use.  There’s only 3 switches besides data/address toggles.

[commodorez]

A very authentic TV Typewriter build, complete with the fake wood grain contact paper made out of a banker’s box sits next to an ASR-33 teletype in the MARCH museum.

[commodorez]

Bill Degnan had a pretty cool Altair 680 setup with an ASR-33 Teletype and a Hazeltine 1510.  He seemed to have issues reading paper tape all day, so he was constantly tweaking his trying to debug his ASR-33, even going so far as to cart in a second one to hopefully read off of that (after some brief maintenance).

Then after the weekend was over, he supposedly re-read his paper tape at home and found out that there was a small section of garbled data on what he was trying to read that caused the problem.