Text 61545, 56 rader
Skriven 2010-07-25 06:39:00 av Miles Maxted (3:772/1.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Paul Quinn
Ärende: Long Filename Troubles.
===============================
G'morning Paul,

And this ex-Royal New Zealand Signaller thanks you for the 
nostalgic memory of ...

 PQ> On a similar note, one of the most interesting life's
 PQ> experience I've had was when I worked at an Army
 PQ> headquarters where there was a signals unit providing
 PQ> communications via teletype machines.  I was just one of
 PQ> their 'customers', mind you, and would use their facility
 PQ> as I would with any other 'black box' operation.  You know,
 PQ> I draft up a message and hand it over to them for
 PQ> transmission.

In Her Majesty's signal squadrons, the telegraph rooms were 
nicknamed "tape factories"...

 PQ> Anyhow, the crux of the message: some of the signals operators would
 PQ> wander around with lengths of punched tape draped over their
 PQ> shoulders, and I once got to talking with one of them who
 PQ> said that sometimes they'd do that until one of the
 PQ> machines was free in order to run the tape through.  I was
 PQ> somewhat aghast at the idea that they would take such a
 PQ> lackadaisical attitude with something like not decoding
 PQ> them ASAP, but, the feller said that he'd already read it
 PQ> and knew that it wasn't important.  I mean the guy said
 PQ> that he had already translated the hole punches into ASCII
 PQ> in his head!

Baudot codes (ITA1) preceded the Murray code (ITA2) used on the 
tapes,  which led in turn to the EDCDIC and ASCII we all love, in 
effect.

To extend your historics,  I used to enjoy visiting the telegraph 
rooms;  there'd be up to 10 distant-looking fellas chatting 
quietly in a room full of 'sounders' - solenoids that clicked and 
clacked their Morse aloud.

Every now and then,  a sounder would fall silent, an operator 
would excuse himself and wander over, key out an acknowledgement 
and write down the message....   bloody amazing in the light of my 
own crude 15wpm morse and 7 bit memory.

Miles



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