19 Sep
2023
19 Sep
'23
12:21 a.m.
The thing most people know in the (computer) world as a teletype is a
model 33 which really UNIX was unaffected by (other than dealing with
the limited character set) and UNIX didn’t influence. For those with a
model 37 (I had one in my house for a while picked up surplus from Rocky
Flats), you knew of its influence on UNIX. This was a unit that the
line terminator was indeed NEWLINE (^J) rather than carriage return. It
dealt with all the ESC 8 and 9 and the like that nroff put out by
default and th SI/SO to shift from the regular to the greek character
box.
The mechanical teletypes largely predated UNIX having the ability to
change anything.
That doesn’t mean that UNIX didn’t affect the TELETYPE brand. The 5620
DMD bore the Teletype brand but came straight from BellLabs Blit (aka
Jerry) work.