Luggable 75 lb "laptop" from 1968
Harry sez, "Computers weren't portable in 1968 (they tended to fill entire rooms), but even then, the yen for portable computing was there. In 1968, Computerworld reported on a carrying case that turned a Teletype machine into a 75-pound mobile terminal--wheels were optional." The Laptop, Circa 1968 (Thanks, Harry!)
the latest
latest episodes
Only $45,000!
this must be one of those "labtops" i see people talking about.
But would it sync to your Hi-Fi?
the original thin client, only fat
Wow...makes the old Commodore SX-64 portable seem light. Mid 80s, I had written a crappy midi sequencer based around some of the SID player I had found code for and put it out on the BBSs...somehow hired to support it on tour...
At 30 pounds in a suitcase, it was the first laptop I had ever seen...never even knew things like this existed until I showed up to the rehearsal studio for my first day's work. Did make for a great BBS / phreak station while on the road...I was the envy of all the other SYSOPs I knew for a while...
Now a days, my MBP seems absolutely heavy...we should all be reminded of the earlier days before complaining about what we have now...
You really wouldn't want to carry a 33 Teletype around... those things are difficult to keep in alignment when totally stationary!
In case y'all don't know, a Teletype 33 is a mechanical printing terminal. It resembles a large typewriter with a serial data port. No computer contained therein. So this would only be useful with a modem and a remote timesharing computer.
A few years later, Texas Instruments made the Silent 700 data terminal which was the size of a small briefcase and had a built-in modem. It used thermal paper.
Sometime in the mid-1970s, my dad brought home a thing which was called Miniterm, I think, which was a complete handheld computer terminal! It had a small LED dot matrix screen. Data entry was via a Touch-Tone® telephone keypad with three shift buttons (on the side to be pressed by the hand holding the device) to access the alpha characters easily. Very similar to texting.
This is a Teletype terminal. It had absolutely no processing power. It only printed 64 characters, ALL UPPERCASE ALL THE TIME (7 bit ASCII, with 1 parity bit, one start bit, and two stop bits). Without the acoustic coupler, it had one small circuit board with two discrete transistors for the electromagnet driver and some diodes, resistors and capacitors for the power supply, otherwise it is completely electromechanical. The motor syncs up by virtue of the two stop bits, and electromagnets pull in the selected bits as the selector spins around at 110 baud. Once the character is received, motor power runs a cam to move the typebox (or typewheel there were some different styles) based on the selected bits. The selected character is then rammed into the paper to print. Since this was initially built for the teletype network, it needed a way to identify itself. On the receipt of a control-E, a little plastic wheel with 20 teeth on each of nine cylinders would be stepped around to read off the 20 character answerback. This was encoded onto the wheel in ASCII by breaking off selected teeth on the wheel.
Search for ASR33, and you can find pictures, video, and complete manuals for the beasts. The ASR meant that it had a papertape reader/punch as well.
NixieBunny,
It was called a Termiflex. One of my roommates got a loaner from the inventor ca. 1974.
I remember trying to get a Telex to Zaire. The national machine was down. They had a spare but no one ever serviced it.
I have one. It has a 35 MB hardrive.
Bullitt was also made in 1968. In one scene, Bullitt, Chalmers and Captain Bennett are in a teletype room while a (fax?) machine - complete with telephone modem and acoustic coupling - receives and prints out the suspect's identification sheet.
Is this teletype the same kind of machine, or altogether different?
Pretty impressive that guy can lug 75 pounds that easily. He looks like he barely feels it at all.
Thanks #8
Very informative, I appreciate your nerd balls.
Small machine shops were still using those in the '80s to save programs for CNC machines.
The program would be punced out on the 1" wide tape on the left side of the machine.
In the early-mid seventies, my dad worked for the local newspaper (Star Tribune). Some weekends, he'd bring home this "portable" computer -- must have weighed fifty pounds, built like Samsonite luggage. It had a big rubber grommets where you'd plug in the phone handset, then call the mainframe computer -- 300 bps, if memory serves -- and used thermal paper. On a good weekend, I'd burn through several rolls of that expensive thermal paper, playing poker and hangman and a primitive "Star Trek" game ... those were the days!