ASR33

Flagship of any retro collection from the early interactive age must surely be the Teletype ASR33, the hardcopy terminal that was the mainstay of interfacing both to single-user systems and to timeshare systems. Manufactured in the early Polymer Age (Paleopolymer), these rugged devices run at a steady 110 baud, and our individual runs on a 20mA current loop (a predecessor of RS-232) working in ASCII code but using only upper case for the letters.

Currently being restored (follow this link if you'd like to help) by John with a pair of pliers.

We hope to have our ASR33 running connected to a serial port on one a unix machine. We've fetched www, the line mode browser, to run on it, to give a taste of what the web would have been like had someone thought of it in the sixties. Obviously there would have been less information on it (as there was less space in which to store it) but you'll hardly be able to tell at 110 baud!

The keyboard

The keyboard has little cylindrical grey keys, with the control key where it should be (I'm not the only person who thinks this).

The layout is bit-apired.

Teletype links

• ASR33 Teletype
• ASR 33 Teletype Information
• History Of The Teletype Corporation Skokie
• Teletype Corporation ASR-33
• teletype.jpg (JPEG Image, 768x1024 pixels)
• Ken&Den picture
• PDP-8 Document Search Results (you can download manuals via this link)
• ASR 33 Teletype Printing Video
• Current loop
• History of teletypes
• History of teletypes (shorter version?)
• 33 ASR museum page at nadcomm

Latest contact address?

    1996 address listing

    Teletype Corporation
    5555 Touhy Ave.
    Skokie, IL 60077-3235 USA

    Phone: +1 847/677-0800

Contact me

Last modified: Thu Feb 12 18:24:19 GMT 2004