GE Terminet terminal

What is being described is almost surely a Terminet - an ASCII teleprinter using a continuous rotating band with upright 'fingers' containing the individual characters - these passed in front of 72 hammers, and behind them were the ribbon and paper respectively. There were three complete sets of character fingers, thus cutting the 'latency' of the band in thirds. When the right character arrived at the correct position on the page, the opposing hammer fired and imprinted it. The fingers were easily removable allowing for alternate fonts and character sets. The two I had were fitted with the dual cassette units (used instead of paper tape, (but employing very much the same 'algosithm'), and I used them in the very early 80s with a 300 Baud Novation JCat modem, to access Compuserve and a couple of other primitive on-line services, as well as BBSes. The unit is well worth saving - you don't say where you are, but they are rare now and I'm sure someone will be very happy to make it go away for you... Cheers John