[ih] TWX and Telex, was Obscure e-mail systems

[John Levine]

>> On the other hand, I have to note that an ASR-33 would have been used
>> for TWX, not Telex.  A Telex would use an ASR-32 or more likely an
>> older and sturdier model 28.
>
>Not to be argumentative, but I think a TWX Would almost certainly have 
>been a 14, 15, or 19 and maybe an occasional 28.

As I recall, there was three row 5-level baudot TWX with regular phone
numbers and four row 8 level ASCII TWX with N10 phone numbers.  You
could call from one to the other through gateways, ASCII to baudot
used the mysterious "restrain" signal to tell the sending machine to
wait so the gateway could catch up.

The 8 level TWX would all have been model 33 or 35.  I never heard of
the machines later than the 35 used for anything other than talking to
computers.

I did all of my telexing through the gateway from MCI Mail, which gave
every MCI Mail account a telex number.  It worked pretty well, give or
take problems persuading correspondents who knew that all US telex
numbers were 6 digits that your number really did have 10 digits.  I
also got the occasional telex from people who could not imagine that
there wasn't a machine with an operator at the other end and got
irritated that I didn't start typing back when they rang the bell.

R's,
John