CuriousMarc Mixes the Old and the New with a Physical Linux TTY Teletype Modification
With a physical Teletype machine from the 1930s and a modern Linux system, CuriousMarc's latest project is a blend of old and new tech.
CuriousMarc has published a video that mixes the modern with the vintage, by turning a Teletype machine from the 1930s into a terminal for a Linux system.
Teletype machines, also known as teleprinters, began life as tools for telegraphy in the late 1800s: Whatever was typed at one end would be printed both locally and remotely at a second Teletype. When the early computers needed a user interface a little more user-friendly than flashing lights or punched cards, Teletypes were adapted to take typed input as commands and return their output via the printer.
Today, the only vestige of Teletype technology in a modern operating system is in nomenclature, with Linux and other POSIX-compliant operating systems referring to their interface devices as TTYs — TeleTYpes. That is, unless you decide to turn a physical Teletype from the 1930s into a Linux TTY like CuriousMarc.
"Some commenters requested that we use our restored vintage 1930 Model 15 Teletype as a terminal for Linux," CuriousMarc notes. "Hooking up a 5-bit Baudot mechanical contraption to a modern OS, even one that is terminal friendly, is not without some challenges: adapting to the non-standard high voltage 60 mA current loop, interfacing ASCII to the much smaller and different Baudot encoding, working in all caps, dealing with Baudot FIGS and LTRS modes, and making sure the computer doesn't overrun the pokey 45.5 bauds connection. But hey, Unix was developed on (much more modern 8-bit) Teletypes, so that should still work, shouldn't it?"
The answer can be found in the above embedded video, or on CuriousMarc's YouTube channel.