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

[Larry Sheldon]

On 3/17/2016 21:23, John Levine wrote:
>>> 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.

My main nit that I was picking at is that TWX was a manual, cord-board 
thing at 60wpm.

It died and went away with the conversion (using the same machines with 
a new subset) to DTWX.

At about the same time the 100wpm system came on--UAL and DAL being the 
first two subs I remember and to only ones I can remember the names of. 
  It was a very airline-centric system with airline addressing (three 
character place, 2 character function and they used 10-digit telephone 
numbers including a 3-digit SNPA).  If that was expanded to others, it 
must have been after I left that part of the business.


-- 
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)