TELEX machine, modems

Hi George. Most likely this is a 45.45 Baud tty, often used by HAM radio amateurs. Nowadays most amateurs have turned to PC solutions for RTTY reception. We call that teletype a "carrot crusher" over here in Holland. The 5-bit code is called Baudot, and allows for uppercase characters, numbers and some punctuation. When you say "wait a minute, how is that possible with 32 combinations?" Simple, 2 characters are reserved to shift the whole mechanism from "LETTER" to "DIGIT", so depending on the previous reception of such a special character the characters that follow are readable or garbage. Radio amateurs include something called UOS (Unshift on Space). When the "LETTER" character is not properly received, the first space char makes everything "normal" again. So, to connect a 5-bit teletype to (any) computer you need a conversion program to convert ASCII to Baudot, and at the correct transmission speed. 73 - Henk, PE1CKF Ham Radio amateur and PDP-11 addict.