Hello Ernest!
Well... I'm just a bit excited here, because I've been looking for one of
these for LONG time -- and just the fact that a fellow enthusiast has one
is good news to me! ;-)
Anyhow -- I'm so gaga over this little machine because it was my first.
Yep. Starting around 1979, almost every weekend, I used one of these
marvels - when my father would bring it home from work (I'd look forward to
Friday's so much -- waiting for the terminal to show up (oh yes, and my
father of course ;-) and if there was no terminal for me when dad rolled
in at 5pm, well, it was a long 7 days until the following Friday -- sigh.)
I used to go through rolls and rolls of thermal paper - I would guess an
average of 6-10 rolls from Friday evening when I started pounding on
the keys until Sunday night when I had to give it up (actually, I usually
sneaked in some more time Monday morning, real early before school.)
I would dial up to a local TIP and then connect to machines back at
MIT (in the days of I.T.S. and their "tourist" accounts.) I had logins
at MIT-AI, DM, MC, and ML. Dialogs would ensue, real time chatting
(connect with ^_c I think? I know I had the hardest time figuring out
how to produce a control-underscore for some reason), mailing list
reading (what were they call again? HUMAN-NETS and SF-LOVERS I
believe (?)) This was all real novel for me at the time: I don't want
to date myself here (why not Eric? ...) but to a grade school kid - I
was doing some unique stuff compared to my peers.
I developed quite a group of fellow "tourist" friends, and some MIT student
friends -- although the notion of having tourists was not all that popular
with some administrators at the LCS. I even visited the lab at MIT a
couple times (relatives live in Boston area) and recd the full tour of
"545 Tech Square, the 9th floor" (I know - big wow - but for me, at
the time, having _never_ used a CRT terminal, it was a chance to
experience things such as emacs without having to work your way around
it using a thermal paper printout (ugh).
I ramble - back to the Teleterm: I don't know what the connectors on the
back are - IIRC - I never had to use them. I just jammed the phone headset
as hard as I could into the acoustic coupler and kept the ambient
noise down. Those inverted-toilet-bowl-plunger designs (er, I mean
acoustic-coupler) frustrated me on many occasions.
And I have to ask: Any more of these machines available? I've had no
luck in finding these at all! :(
Finally - I had thought the unit was actually called "Miniterm" as
opposed to "Teleterm" -- but since you actually have the unit ...
I do have a picture of the Miniterm I had used -- see it at
http://home.san.rr.com/instep/miniterm.jpg
(BTW - This is my first post to this list - I have been a silent reader
for quite some time - and have the usual first-time-poster-jitters. I
also want to thank Marvin_at_rain.org for pointing this list out to me!)
Eric
> Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 22:49:53 -0800
> From: "Ernest" <ernestls_at_home.com>
> Subject: Computer Device Teleterm 1030 info?
> I found one of these interesting little devices earlier in the week, and I
> can't find any information about it on the net, so I thought that I would
> check with you folks to see if anyone knows anything about it?
> It by a company called "Computer Device." Do you think they sprained their
> brains coming up with that name? I picture some venture capitalist saying,
> "Damnit! That's a good one."
> It's got an acoustic coupler on the back, a roll of paper behind the
> keyboard on the front. It sort of reminds me of a blue Apple II, with the
> roll of paper visible behind the keyboard.
> It also has a couple of female ports on the back (DB25/DB15) but they are
> unmarked.
> Any information that anyone could give me on this Teleterm 1030 would be
> appreciated.
> Thanks
> Ernest
Received on Mon Nov 27 2000 - 03:07:18 GMT
