3M silentwriter model 1483? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Dec 1998

&lt;cdrmool(a)interlog.com&gt; wrote:
...
  Anyone know the story behind this?  Its a small
keyboard connected to a 
 small thermal paper printer.  It has an old 70's style phone jack
 (at least the kind we used in Ontario Canada) coming out the back of the
 printer.  My father who found it says he thinks its one of the early
 devices used by the deaf.   I think it was probably just a simple
 terminal.   
Silentwriter or Whisperwriter?  I think I remember the 3M flavor having
the latter name.

I played with one of them back in 1983 or 1984.  That one had a
keyboard connected to a thermal printer by some sort of cord (they
were separate boxes), and I think an RJ11 phone jack for a POTS line.
As I recall it was an ASCII terminal plus modem with a memory buffer
that could be used for offline composition, and it came to us
recommended as a tool for composing and sending Telexes via Western
Union's Easylink service.  (We sent it back and made an HP150 do the
job.)  I don't remember if it could be made to do other codes than
ASCII.

More recently (early 1990s), I've seen one with a little CRT (again in
a separate box) used as a Telex terminal, but didn't inquire to find
out how it was connected or what was on the other end of the
connection.

-Frank McConnell