13 Jun
2008
13 Jun
'08
10:13 a.m.
I posted this over at comp.terminals, but I figured I'd send it out to this list
too...
I've just accquired a Westinghouse W1642 terminal, and I'm looking for
any kind of documentation I can find on it. It's clearly somewhat of a
single purpose terminal, originally used at airlines. The keyboard is
weird, and is missing many "useful" characters, like brackets,
slashes, pipe and comma. Instead, it has various weird symbols,
command keys, and such. It has no shift key, and only displays upper
case. It also appears to support multiple sessions, with keys to
switch between them, and display a split screen mode. Typing in any of
the sessions will echo to the screen, even with nothing connected.
On the back are four female DB25 connectors - LINE/PRINT, PRINT1,
PRINT2 and AUX. I've tried connecting it up to a computer and sending
text to it, at 9600 baud. Connecting an RS232 cable to AUX causes the
CTRL-DOWN indicator at the bottom of the screen to go away, but only
for the full screen session. Sending random junk to the terminal
through the serial port occasionally is able to bring up a message at
the top, something about an invalid printer, but no other garbage
displays. So far, I've only tried it at 9600 baud, I didn't have time
last night to try other speeds.
Inside the terminal seems rather conventional, I haven't dismantled it
completely, but near each port is a 75154 (quad line receiver), and it
appears that farther back on the board are other comms chips
(socketed). I was expecting to see 1488/89 pairs, but haven't seen
those in there yet. Two of the ports are on a daughter board, the
other two are on the main board. The boards are partially hidden by
the monitor chassis, and I've not pulled them out to look yet. There
are some dip switches on the main board though.
So.. basically, I know that this isn't going to be a great computer
terminal, with it's lack of important command keys, (no ESC either!).
That's too bad, since it's very well built, has a very nice keyboard,
and a very sharp, clear screen. But, I would like to be able to do
something with it, send text to it, use it as a console command
monitor, something. Does anyone have any kind of documentation or
information on this beastie?
Thanks!
-Ian
17 Jun
17 Jun
5:45 p.m.
Could this thing be doing a modification of the old teletype codes?
Sone if the really easier machines used modifications on the Baudaut set.
bs
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
I posted this over at comp.terminals, but I figured
I'd send it out to this list too...
I've just accquired a Westinghouse W1642 terminal, and I'm looking for
any kind of documentation I can find on it. It's clearly somewhat of a
single purpose terminal, originally used at airlines. The keyboard is
weird, and is missing many "useful" characters, like brackets,
slashes, pipe and comma. Instead, it has various weird symbols,
command keys, and such. It has no shift key, and only displays upper
case. It also appears to support multiple sessions, with keys to
switch between them, and display a split screen mode. Typing in any of
the sessions will echo to the screen, even with nothing connected.
On the back are four female DB25 connectors - LINE/PRINT, PRINT1,
PRINT2 and AUX. I've tried connecting it up to a computer and sending
text to it, at 9600 baud. Connecting an RS232 cable to AUX causes the
CTRL-DOWN indicator at the bottom of the screen to go away, but only
for the full screen session. Sending random junk to the terminal
through the serial port occasionally is able to bring up a message at
the top, something about an invalid printer, but no other garbage
displays. So far, I've only tried it at 9600 baud, I didn't have time
last night to try other speeds.
Inside the terminal seems rather conventional, I haven't dismantled it
completely, but near each port is a 75154 (quad line receiver), and it
appears that farther back on the board are other comms chips
(socketed). I was expecting to see 1488/89 pairs, but haven't seen
those in there yet. Two of the ports are on a daughter board, the
other two are on the main board. The boards are partially hidden by
the monitor chassis, and I've not pulled them out to look yet. There
are some dip switches on the main board though.
So.. basically, I know that this isn't going to be a great computer
terminal, with it's lack of important command keys, (no ESC either!).
That's too bad, since it's very well built, has a very nice keyboard,
and a very sharp, clear screen. But, I would like to be able to do
something with it, send text to it, use it as a console command
monitor, something. Does anyone have any kind of documentation or
information on this beastie?
Thanks!
-Ian
7:16 p.m.
Could this thing be doing a modification of the old
teletype codes?
Sone if the really easier machines used modifications on the Baudaut set.
Actually as far as I've seen, no Teletype machines actually used Baudot
code or variants thereof. They all use variants of Marray code, similar
to ITA2.
The only substantive similarities between Baudot code and Murray code
are that both are five-level codes and both use letters and figures
shifts.
Tom Jennings has published the results of his thorough research into
these early character codes:
http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/
11:05 p.m.
Could this thing be doing a modification of the
old teletype codes?
Sone if the really easier machines used modifications on the Baudaut set.
Actually as far as I've seen, no Teletype machines actually used Baudot
code or variants thereof. They all use variants of Marray code, similar
to ITA2.
The only substantive similarities between Baudot code and Murray code
I have an old set of books that describe the 'Baudot Quadruplex' (time
division multiplexed, done by mechanically rotated seelctors) in great
detail, and whihc give the character codes (in this machine, you used a
5-key 'chording' keybboard, not a normal alphanumeric one, so you had to
know the bit patterns).
Of course I also haev a Murray/ITA2 table.
And there are, as far as I can see, no characters that are the same. Even
the letter/figures shift equivanlence is totally different (in the
Murray code, the digits are assigned to the figures shift of Q...P in the
obvious way, so the top row of a 3-row alpha keyboard becomes the digits
in figures shift. In baudot code, this is not the case).
are that both are five-level codes and both use
letters and figures
shifts.
Not even that is idetncial. In Murray code, the 'shift' codes change the
state of the decoding/printing mechanism, but do noting else. In Baudot
code, they print a space. That is, there's a 'figures apce' which select
figures and prints a space, there's also 'letters space' which does the
obvious. There is no other space character. And there are no carriage
returen or linefeed codes, becuase the baudot printer printed on a paper
tape
-tony
20 Jun
20 Jun
5:37 p.m.
Point taken and I'm sorry for passing on erronious information as I
had received it too many years ago. But the statement i made could
still be valid for the question.
bs
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008, Eric Smith wrote:
Could this
thing be doing a modification of the old teletype codes?
Sone if the really easier machines used modifications on the Baudaut set.
Actually as far as I've seen, no Teletype machines actually used Baudot
code or variants thereof. They all use variants of Marray code, similar
to ITA2.
The only substantive similarities between Baudot code and Murray code
are that both are five-level codes and both use letters and figures
shifts.
Tom Jennings has published the results of his thorough research into
these early character codes:
http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/
5871
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5878
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
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schwepes＠moog.netaxs.com