Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki
Strangest one though was a Tektronix thermal printer that used silver-coated paper and a wide, thin CRT whose 'window' was the width of the paper. A sort-of hybrid between a dot-matrix printer and a fax, it was used to send combined Roman-and-Japanese-character-set documents.
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Something similar was used to produce hard copy from Tektronix storage displays (both the computer terminals like the 4006 and XY displays). These units had a DA15 socket on the back to connect the hard copy unit. I don't have one, but I think I have the service manual for one model on the shelf.
Be warned if you are crazy enough to want one that it's actually a photographic process which develops with heat (that's what the heater section in the printer is for). The paper is long-since discontinued and it doesn't keep (like most photographic materials). I am told it is impossible to get working paper for them now.
As for teleprinters, I have a Creed 7E, a Creed 444 and a couple of Teletype Model 33ASRs. That's the mechanical ones. I also have a Teletype 43KSR, a Termiprinter (badged ICL, this was made in America and is actually a belt type line printer mechanism), a Silent 700 with the 2 cassette drives on top (which act like a punch/reader) and a (mains powered) portable thing called a Miniterm 1203 (keyboard, thermal printer and acoustic coupler (fortunately there's also an RS232 port to use in place of th enternal modem). Probably enough bits to assemble a DEC letterwriter 100 (KSR version of the LA100) too.
I have service manuals/circuit diagrams for all of those apart from the Creed 7E. The Creed 75 and Creed 444 manuals are on Sam Hallas's site, but I've not found anything offical on the Creed 7 series. I do have the RSGB Teleprinter Handbook which is a great help though.