tech.faħmu.net

I’ve now officially spent more on cleaners and safety equipment than the actual unit.

I am DARTH VADER … fron the planet .. VULCAN!!!
But seriously.. it DOES keep those pesky volatile organics out of, say, my lungs.

Is it soup yet? Nooo!!
Type basket parts (but not the basket itself) get a bath in paint thinner.

Oh and speaking of pests.. that 1945 stamp probably means there are mercury compounds and other bad stuff in my TTY.. That’s why it’s been moved OUT side.

more photos
I mostly took the photos to help remember how to put the thing back together (!) .. but you are welcome to look.

Amazing things:
1. seeing implemented in hardware, steel even, what we do nowadays in software: the mapping between bits (1’s and 0’s) to letters, numbers and other symbols. Now it is trivial to change that mapping.. but when it is physical, you have to actually cut metal, reassemble things, etc.

2. Some of the parts have numbers stamped into them to indicate which part they are…. and some of the part numbers are crossed out as a mistake. I realized that this is probably because the numbers were put on by hand.

3. the ‘type’ is soldered onto the end of each lever.

4. it smells horribly

5. I’m buying a gallon or so of varnish remover today to start degreasing these..

upgrade of a panasonic pm-a740 faceplate

0. Not plugging it in yet – I want to make sure it’s not going to destroy itself or someone else. So all of the below has to do with manual-cranking. Here are more pictures of the insides of a model 15.

1. Sending: sending seems to be OK. you press a key and the bits are sent down the line in the right order.

2a. Receiving:accumulator. The 5-bit accumulator which takes incoming bits seems to be functioning now. I can manually push the coil in the right time sequence and change the bit pattern.;

2b. Receiving:vanes these horizontal things move up and down with each bit, and each moves one of the C-shaped notched items just below the keys. The pattern of notches selects which key will strike. Most of these move now, but they are sticky. I was able to get keys ‘T’ and ‘O’ to attempt to strike.

2c. receiving:printing – the center hinge where the keys join together is movable but with much difficulty. I’ve seen this happen on old typewriters before. Remember that this part will be full of ink and other grime. I think this part especially just needs to be taken apart and cleaned.

2d. receiving: ink – I am going to find some roll-on ink (like for re-inking a stamp pad). That will probably serve best for keeping the ribbon going.

2e. receiving: carriage – the carriage movement doesn’t seem tobe working right. I have to figure out what it is trying to do.

3. electrical – I want to rewire it so that only the motor is connected, not the other parts (including an old board to convert from ttl to current loop levels). Probably to start with I will ‘cheat’ and just drive the solenoid directly from something, rather than using current loop.

I. Bought. A. Teletype. Yeah, those.

It’s a model 15, and it is from before May of 1945.

Pictures..

Here’s a nice homemade air cooler