RE: [N8VEM-S100:5091] Looking for a teletype

Don, I’m also sorry to hear about your ASR33 loss. I’d be similarly emotional about losing or damaging mine!

I have two ASR33’s, both restored by Wayne Durkee in Vermont prior to being shipped to Australia a couple of years ago. I’ve been very happy with them – and with the quality of Wayne’s work. I’m not sure if Wayne is still restoring ASR33’s. Because of the costs (and fragility) of buying these machines and shipping them to Australia, I keep one in my office and the other safely boxed up. Mine are not “cosmetically-perfect”, but function well.

The best ASR33 I’ve seen was a brand-new-in-box unit on ebay about 2 years ago in CA. It sold for about $3400. Good ones do still seem to come up every 6 months and seem to sell for around $1500. I still hear stories about them appearing rarely at hamfests quite cheaply in the U.S. There must still be hundreds of these still lurking in garages and storage spaces in the U.S., so just need to be a little patient. In 5+ years the only ones I’ve found here in Australia were total rust buckets. Also be aware also that calibration and lubrication are not trivial tasks.

I’ve also noticed that ASR33’s that are set up for telex use (rather than computer use) sell significantly cheaper. These are the ones that typically have the rotary dial on the right hand side. Although not a trivial task, it should be possible to strip out this equipment and replace it with a reader run relay, for use with a computer.

I’d be interested in seeing links to any paper-tape software for 8080/Z80 S100 systems. If anyone is aware of good paper tape resources (other than Bitsavers), please mail me off list. I currently use my ASR33s on PDP-11’s, but am interested in running them on an IMSAI and on Josh’s 8080 board.

Malcolm.

From: n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Crusty OMO
Sent: Sunday, 31 August 2014 3:45 AM
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:5091] Looking for a teletype

John,

Just keep looking, it will appear some day... but be ready to dish out lots of $$$

I've seen 2 of them, but I'm sure the owners are not willing to sell.

Don, sorry about your loss, RIP.

Building a new paper tape reader sounds like a real fun project. But it will require all kinds of machining, tools I don't have.

Cheers,
Josh

Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 10:13:17 -0700
From: ilv...@gmail.com
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:5090] Looking for a teletype

Oh, what a sad story. I bought one several years ago. The paper tape reader and punch worked like a charm.
The keybopard function was perfect. The guy I bought it from use to work on them so knew how to tune them up.

During some activity in my garage a large object fell off a shelf, hit the ASR and knocked into on the
floor smashing it to pieces! I was just sick over it and kick myself for not storing it in my basement.
Brings tears to my eyes now just thinking about it.

Good luck finding one John. I've given up.

There use to be a guy on eBay that sold a really nice paper tape reader. It was very cool. Ran off LED's.
You could pull the tape through by hand at any speed. I wanted one but the price was rather outrageous.
This sort of a kit would be a great project and fun to build.

On 08/30/14 09:53 AM, monahanz wrote:

Any of you guys out there know where I could pick up an ASR33, preferably with a paper tape reader. A few years ago they were fairly common on eBay. None right now.

If anybody has seen one in the SF bay area will travel!

John

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "N8VEM-S100" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to n8vem-s100+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Don Caprio

ilv...@gmail.com