While the "information" technology of old is ridiculous today, the 
"mechanical" technology would be worth a fortune today.

I tore a junked large teletype apart, and a junked large card punch and 
reader apart.

I still have the small desksize teletype/printer frame and added steel 
plate. The huge power transformer was very sophisticated, with 
capacitors the size of large beer cans. The separate circuit area was 
very accessable, and the printer/keyboard/interface desktop was 
comfortable for a seated worker. The stepper motor feeding the dot 
printer head has a screw over 2feet long, and I still have that. I have 
pondered building a fuel cell, or other power generator onto that beast.

I also still have the frame on wheels for the IBM card punch/reader. But 
the incredible automation hulk had to go, sanity and my wife prevailed.

It was a pleasure and honor to dis-assemble such electro-mechanical 
genius, especially when I see the machining junk now selling on eBay. I 
won't get in to what old hard drives looked like inside. Those were the 
prototypes for today's marvels.

Innovation can win big or lose big. A good friend got a ton of money to 
automate plastic vacuum forming in the 1980s. Starving Rick pushed 
computers, but he chose pneumatics. Next I heard he ran off to Bolivia.



gerry wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2017, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:
>> On 02/03 10:53 , Iznogoud wrote:
>>> At age 9 I had an Amstrad CPC 6128 with 128kB of RAM.
>>
>> I remember my Apple IIc being a big deal because it had 128KB RAM.
>>
>> I'm sure there's someone on this list who remembers the days of 'ed' 
>> on a
>> teletype tho, so I'm not going to try to out-nostalgia anyone here.
>>
>> (I have used a teletype once or twice, they aren't worthy of 
>> nostalgia. Good
>> riddance to the things.)
>>
>
> Playing yahtzee and football on a teletype while my dad fixed the line 
> printers at Bemidji State   ... those were the days.   About 1975 or 
> so I think.
>
>
>
> -- 
> gsker
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