10 Oct
2009
10 Oct
'09
10:23 a.m.
bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
I don't think there was a way to get *one* with
out
buying a IBM COMPUTER.
I/O Selectrics were an IBM OEM product. DEC used them in a RAND
contract to build JOSS terminals, SDS and CDC used them for console
printers, for example.
What you couldn't get were IBM Executive
typewriters with computer interfaces, like on the 1620.
This was solved by a mechanical kludge that Soroban added to them,
which was killed off by the release of the Selectric, and by how
unreliable the Soroban adapter was. DEC only used Sorobans on the
PDP-1, switched to TTY 28's for the PDP-4, then ASCII printers
afterwards.
Other alternatives for typewriters were Flexowriters and 5-level
Teletypes (ASCII and the model 33/35 hadn't been invented yet).