----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Lane" <kyrrin_at_bluefeathertech.com>
To: <cctech_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: Can anyone id this? Western Union TWX V Diagnostic Control
Panel
> Bear with me... It has been decades... But I used to work for Western
Union repairing TWX, Telex, and similar beasties.
>
> I remember those boxes, if a bit vaguely. I seem to recall that they were
built for the specific purpose of testing and exercising the Bell data sets
(the low-speed 110-baud modems) that were built into every TWX machine. I
believe they have some character or pattern-generation capability.
>From my time in the dutch PTT, I would say that they had at least an
RYRYRYRY testing capability. Explanation for the unwashed masses : this was
the closest one could get to an alternating bit-pattern, at least on 5-bit
systems. I still have a metal plate somehwere, where all Baudot codes are
engraved.
The letters G H and J were used for various purposes, depening on the
country. In Holland, they had some funny "characters" like a square, a
square with a slash through it, and a square with a hyphen trough it. In
Denmark, they were used for the characters ? ? and ?
Nico
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Received on Sun Oct 03 2004 - 13:04:52 BST