14 Mar
2011
14 Mar
'11
2:03 p.m.
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Dave McGuire wrote:
> Great stuff! Does anyone remember the solenoid-filled boxes that sat over
> the keyboard of a Selectric typewriter and turned it into a printer, that
> were sold via magazine ads and such? This sorta reminds me of those, going
> in the other direction. Neat!
On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, Mike Loewen wrote:
There was such a gadget on Ebay a couple of weeks
ago, but I can't find
it now. It was missing a couple of plungers from the solenoids.
Rochester Dynatyper
KGS-80
I can't remember which one was which - one was "Centronics parallel" with
a 34 pin card edge connector on ribbon cable for TRS-80 but worked just
fine with a "blue ribbon" connector crimped on. The other had a two edged
circuit board for expansion bus of TRS-80 AND Apple][. Both could work
with any "normal" keyboard that didn't require manually moving the platen
or mechanism for Carriage return, including typewriters, computers, and
even a Merganthaler from Hell. It even worked to beat on the keys when a
Model 3 keyboard wasn't working until each key had been forcibly pressed a
few dozen times.
Escon
box that sat UNDER a Selectric
For a TRULY manual typewriter, I remember one being demo'd at West Coast
Computer Faire that had fishing line pulling on the carriage return lever!
If you were to combine with one of them, then you would have a retro USB
terminal, that is even slower and cruder than an I/O Selectric.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com