What's a Telex?

What if I told you we had the ability to text each other in 1933. What?!? Well, before the advent of texting and even before faxing (I’m sure some of you young people are now wondering what a fax was), there was the Telex, which stood for “Telegraph Exchange”. It’s a now long-forgotten technology used mainly by businesses to transmit short messages to each other, kinda like texting, but attached to telephone wires using devices you definitely couldn’t put in your pocket.
One of the few remaining networks today is "I-Telex" which is run by over 100 enthusiasts to maintain this technology. Some of their equipment is shown in this video. If you want to find out more, go to www.i-telex.net/.
More information: hauptuhr.net/portfolio/the-ne...
Read more:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telex
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_...
If you find issues with the content, I encourage you to update the Wikipedia article, so everyone can benefit from your knowledge.
#telex

[@LittleCar]

Errata: I use baud and bitrate as the same thing when they aren't. I'll have to do a video about baud rate!

[@AndrejaKostic]

Also lookup term symbol rate.

[@TesserId]

Oh, that old pedantic nitpicking. Yeah, there's a difference, but there are cases when the numbers can come out exactly equal. BTW, the definition I was given for baud rate is the one that's the inverse of the shortest nominal duration between transitions. Calculated baud rates only truly differ from calculated bit rate when stop bits are longer than a regular bit duration for asynchronous... Oh and the you could then distinguish between asynchronous and synchronous and the relevance of that. Expect a lot of differing perspectives... like this one.

[@Spillerrec]

Another correction, ASCII is 7-bit encoding. There are a lot of region specific encodings which are ASCII compatible, extending ASCII by using the last bit to add all their custom characters. Large parts of Europe for example use/used ISO-8859-1. You sometimes see remains of this 7-bit legacy pop up, see for example the content transfer encoding for email which originally did not support 8-bit.

[@gali01992]

@@Spillerrec It should also be mentioned that when 7-bit encoding was used, often the eighth bit was used for parity (error correction).

[@robertl.fallin7062]

I continue to hear rtty on shortwave. It is encrypted by a system like the US kw-7 which was compromised by the US Navy spy John walker. RTTY had a long history befor satellite communications.

[@stefanplozza3411]

I grew up in a hotel in Wengen (Bernese Oberland, Switzerland). My parents had a telex machine installed in 1964 - one without paper band, only for direct typing. We were the first house in our town providing this service apart from the post office. On the day of the Lauberhorn skiraces there always was a long line (often surpassing 50m) of journalists patiently waiting to pass the results to their editors, as each of them had to type the whole report directly into the machine. And we were mighty proud of this progressive instrument!

[@1171karl]

"The Telex machine is kept so clean and it types to a waiting world"

[@gilgameshofuruk4060]

And mother feels so shocked, father's world is rocked"

[@elektronischdev]

I really wanted to know what a telex machine is just because of this song.

[@ddoyle11]

I remember watching the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and hearing the measured clatter of the Teletype machine in the background throughout the newscast. In older broadcasts, it can even be seen behind him. It was a prop meant to show the modernity and speed of the news organization. My mother worked in an office with several of them, and she used to present me with the small remnants of the paper rolls when they were replaced with new ones. I was easily amused as a child......

[@BigDogCountry]

Jesus H. Christ those things could spit out paper. Wasn't until later in the life that you could choose what was sent to you.

[@standard_gauge]

@@BigDogCountry In the early 80's I supplied my son's nursery with large amounts of used green stripey paper spat out by very large and very noisy printers. My daughter's nursery got boxes of unused green stripey paper as printing had moved on.

[@BigDogCountry]

@@standard_gauge Did you ever find your baby?

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Those teleprinters were standard equipment in every newsroom. I remember the Creed machines at Radio Malaysia, where my dad worked. They were so large, it made their keyboards look tiny.

[@zetametallic]

@@standard_gauge one of my friends dad's worked "in computers" when I started Reception class in 1980 (aged 4) we too got the stripey green paper with the holes down the sides. My mum kept my 'artworks' and it is interesting to look over it and that paper.

[@clivebrooks8207]

I worked for BT for 40 years and between 1974 and 1989 I worked in a Telex exchange, very different from a telephone exchange. The signalling was plus and minus 80 volts, you get quite a bite from 160 volts. In the later years they had converters which sent the signals out using tones, SCVF (single channel voice frequency). While I was working there it was virtually all Strowger electromechanical switches but then became electronic exchanges. I worked on the very first electronic exchange in the UK. It was built by Plessey Controls in Poole, Dorset and installed in Fleet Building in London. It was just 1024 lines and had bubble memory to store the OS. I left Telex just as it changed over to fully electronic exchanges.

[@Robert-nz2qw]

Those machines made *the best* confetti! My mums work had a telex up till the mid 80s when I was a young lad. The confetti I brought home from emptying their machines was most excellent.

[@lasentinal]

Very small and easily breathed in. Very dangerous and discouraged by most businesses that I encountered here in Australia. I used to service these machines. I also services fax machines, mainframe computers, mini computers, micro computers and all associated peripheral devices. I still tinker and I am able to solve most problems that friends and associates encounter if parts are still available. Most problems are caused by one dee ten tease.

[@Vlad-1986]

I can imagine your poor mom still bringing you confetti and having to hoover all the house afterwards

[@colint]

The chards from punched paper tape had very sharp edges. There is a well known news story of a bride who was blinded at her wedding when some got in her eye.

[@RayJorg]

IN the US, it was (and still probably is) a federal crime to toss the stuff ...

[@BrianMuldoon]

Chad

[@oobbyb]

Not forgotten. My first job out of college in 1982 was for a Telex company. Lots of fun.

[@musmodtos]

I worked for a vestigial bit of PSA (Peugeot-Citroen) that was a hangover from Rootes and a totally ignored bit of the PSA stable until around 2006. We still Telex'd orders for parts to Tile Hill for overnight orders well in to the 2000s, it was still going on when I left. VOR and urgent orders had to be made to Tile Hill via the Telex line. Admittedly it was done on small, 1980s Telex simulators, basically a keyboard and 16x02 display plugged in to the Telex line in the office.

[@chucklemeister1529]

It really was amazing technology for the time, we take so much for granted now, but we have come a long way in the past 100 years.

[@lohphat]

FAX was available widely in the late 1970s as Japan needed "telecopiers" to handle the complex writing system where Telex and TWX couldn't handle it. By the mid 1980s FAX machines were common in the US and EU.

[@Eken-Eken]

Not only that, radiofax or weather fax as that is still used today is way older and started in the 1930s. So basically the fax is way older and still in use today. fist tests go even back to 1911 over telephone lines.

[@c128stuff]

@@Eken-Eken fax is much much older than that even. The first telefacsimile over telegraph wire tests go back to the 1870s, and as you say, by the 1910s it was being adapted to the telephone network.

[@TesserId]

I remember seeing text-book descriptions of the first FAX technology. Somebody needs to dig that up.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Faxes connected to PCs, especially Apple Macs with graphics capability, opened up a whole new set of possibilities. Typical fax scanners had very high contrast, optimized for text, but turning photos into murky blobs. Whereas PC-based scanners, just starting to become popular in the latter 1980s, had at least full greyscale support (colour was more expensive). And you could dither those greyscale photo scans down to bilevel dots that faxes required, and send people images that looked like greyscale! Then they’d wonder how you did that.

[@josephgaviota]

I believe "Telecopier" was a Xerox term for their machines. Which I used at work in 1975 (!) AND, believe it or not, we had drivers, and the production manager would make a decision if sending a FAX (at 4 pages per minute) would be faster vs driving the copy to the customer's office. Remember, back in the '70s, 4ppm was "standard" and 6ppm was "high speed" FAX.

[@SophieBee1]

I've only just learnt about telexes for the first time. I was born in the mid 80s. I knew what faxes were but my mother hadn't heard of the telex either!

[@colinlighten6700]

My wife worked at the London HQ of a large chemical company. She had to be able to read the tapes. Her job was to go into the office an hour early, clear all the tapes from the floor generated by 10 machines (sometimes ankle deep); tear them into individual messages and feed them back into the machines to forward them onward around the world. All before 8 o’clock!

[@jeffgolden253]

Interesting ... But only a few slight errors. Take it from someone who personally remembers ... 1. In the infancy of the computer industry, Telex machines were also used as monitors/ control consoles for computers. This lasted until the 1960s when IBM Selectric typewriters, which could be wired with solenoids to automatically press the keys, took over. 2. Although Xerox developed a fax machine in the 1960s, the first commercially successful dial-up fax machine was sold by Quip, a division of Exxon. It became widely available in 1971. It cost about $5,000, and it could transmit an 11 inch long page in under a minute. (Important because long distance calls were charged by the minute.)

[@49littlethoughts]

I really enjoyed this video, thank you! The Newspaper I worked for in 1970 used Telex, among other machines of that era...It was my job each morning as a copy girl to wind the tape, that was in a pile on the floor from overnight, stopping at each number that was located at the end of a story. After working there a while, it was easy to spot the number (which was in holes) while it quickly spun around the winding machine I'd connected it to. I then paper clipped and hung them numerically for the next person to pick up. We've come a long way Baby!

[@John7748]

Very interesting article. I worked on Teletype models 15,19,28,29,32,33 and 35 with the Canadian National Telecommunications company from 1970-1974.

[@deeiks12]

In 2008 I was working for a telecom provider and we had a pretty cool task to build a system for automating setting up phone calls between here and some far far places in Russia. It worked by generating a a certain time (lets say two weeks after current time) and sending it as a message over Telex network. Then the telex message was delivered to the person you wanted to have a call with, and he'd have to go to the nearest post office (which could be hundreds of KMs away) on the time and date mentioned on the Telex. Then the system would automatically call both these numbers and bridge the calls. Since lots of people were deported in 1940s to Siberia, Russia, people still have relatives there who they want to stay in touch with. And turns out telex and automated calling is the easiest way to accomplish that. I don't know if it is still in use today tho.

[@LittleCar]

Thanks for sharing. Amazing how people used these systems!

[@rickintexas1584]

I learned to code on a terminal connected to a computer at 300 baud in 1978. Wow how times have changed. I never new what baud meant and never heard of baudot code. Thanks for this video!!!

[@LetsTakeWalk]

My dad used a telex in the 80s, and the Telex ended somewhere in the 90s.

[@stargazer7644]

TWX was pronounced twix. When you dialed a telex number and got connected, you'd send a WRU which would cause the remote machine to reply with its answerback - a stored series of characters containing the remote telex number and customer name. Then you'd send your message, and at the end, you'd send another WRU and if you got the same answerback as at the beginning, that indicated the far end machine received your message completely. TWX lasted so long because it was codified in law as a legally binding communication medium. Banks around the world used telex to transfer funds and make legally binding financial agreements. Shipping companies were another large user of telex.

[@grumble2009]

Great video - I saw a telex at my mom's office in the mid 70s and I, too, very much wanted to play with it and was also prevented from doing so :( The computer that ran the test equipment I used in the Navy still had a mylar tape reader in it, but no one had used it for a decade. It was installed in the equipment rack near the floor and made a good foot rest. That was '91.

[@flightofthecondor]

Thank you for this video. I'm in Malaysia and this video brings back fond memories of my days as a computer service engineer with Rediffusion Malaya back in the 1980s, who installed and maintained a telex-to-computer, store and forward computer-to-telex interface device called Telexbox made by Data & Control Equipment in the U.K. About the size of a modem of those days, or about the size of a ream of 500 A4 sheets, the Telexbox had two RS-232 ports at the back, one to connect to the computer and another to connect to a printer and a connector for a 2-wire (single-current) or 4-wire (double-current) telex line. We would configure the Telexbox's identifier and number using a terminal. The telex operator would prepared a telex message using a text-based word processing software such as WordStar, with a "^" character before the destiination telex at the top, type the message and end with an ending code and then print the message to the Telexbox which would store it in its memory and then proceed to dial up the destination, send the message and clear down, with the interchange and message being printed on the attached printer. The Telexbox would automatically answer incoming telexes and print them on the printer. If the operator needed to chat, they would use a terminal emulation software such as Crosstalk on the PC. Data & Control Equipment subsequently provided us, who were their distributor in Malaysia with a piece of MS-DOS - based software which could perform both functions of word processor and terminal emulator. At some installations we connected the Telebox to minicomputers and perhaps also mainframe computers. It took us over a year to get the state telecommunications service provider here to type-approve the Telexbox for commercial sale by a private company, since they had a rule that only a telex machine could be connected to the telex line which they provided and they also rented the telex machine with the telex line. However, they eventually decided that they could not hold back the march of technology and type approved the Telexbox. The Telexbox was pretty quiet but I surely miss the clatter of telex machines and teleprinters. As for fax, these were introduced into Malaysia in the late 1980s, though they were big and cost between ringgit 8,000 to 10,000 compared to around ringgit 300 plus for a compact, dedicated fax machine today. Yes, we still use fax over here and besides dedicated fax machines, some inkjet or laser printer, scanner and copier devices also include a fax facility , though companies are gradually phasing out their fax machine and increasingly are relying on e-mail, whilst especially small businesses are using massaging services such as WhatsApp to conduct business.

[@davidryan6616]

I worked for 3M in Dublin in 1979 and this was the only way to contact different companies. We use to receive the contents of 20ft containers all typed by hand each time. Yes the paper tape, just brilliant. Great memories. Thanks. 🙂🇮🇪

[@danielemerson312]

In my first job after school, one of my tasks was sending Telex messages. It felt like the future, at the time.

[@TheCMLion]

My dad and his brother both worked for Bank of America back in the 70's and 80's. My uncle worked overseas, so they would occasionally Telex each other without having to call.

[@woltzwurld6760]

1982, I got to mess with one, I was 14. It was called “the monster” and rally used in my moms office. I typed out a paragraph, took the tape and thread it through the input reel. What I typed printed like in the movies and I thought it was the COOLEST thing. Again, it was 1982 :)

[@02chevyguy]

I remember on our family trips from the mid-60's to the early 70's, my Dad would go into a motel office (Holiday Inn, Best Western, etc) and have them check to make sure our reservation was confirmed/make a reservation or have them Telex the location we were going to and tell them we were running behind schedule.

[@TheLucyColeman]

I workedTelex machines for the Army in the late 70’s , on quite nights we used to send large ‘Telex’ pictures, all the operators kept a couple of tapes of their favourite pictures

[@joeblogs4701]

I worked on the Telex system (on customers premises)in central London in the 1960's. The older machines were coded Printer 7B, while the newer ones were the 7E, and the 7E RP (for reperforator). The training to become a Technical Officer on Telex was carried out at the training centre at Stone - Staffordshire. By the time I was trained up these machines were redundant!!!!

[@martinploughboy988]

The replacement for the tele 7 was the 15, or 444. I trained at Stone as well, on both types.

[@oxenforde]

I worked my way through college operating a Telex machine. I was pretty fast on it. Right out of college "Telex" on my resume got me my first real job. I finally took "Telex" off my resume about 2000-because I realized that hiring managers had no idea what a Telex machine was.

[@osgeld]

not to nitpick but faxing has been around since the late 1800's

[@LittleCar]

True, I should have said it wasn't popularised until much later.

[@AliasUndercover]

The machines were a little large, though.

[@bunkie2100]

One of my favorite trivia questions is “when was the first fax sent”?

[@Locutus]

Indeed, they were even used in the D Day Landings, fax machines.

[@einsteinx2]

Yeah I had a little “huh??” moment when I heard that. The fax machine was invented almost 100 years before the Telex system.

[@gali01992]

Back in the mid to late 70s, I was stationed at Holloman Air Force Base (I was Army, not Air Force) as a meteorological observer. All surface observations and radiosonde flights were encoded into Baudot and sent to White Sands Missile Range over a local Telex network. I would punch out the weather info on the paper tape and then send it through the tape reader when done. The tape was usually saved for a few days in case the message was lost on the other end. For us weather balloon people, sending the tape through the reader was a big deal for us because it meant that we were done for the day if we didn't have any other flights.

[@paulguy5368]

Very nice rundown on the underappreciated Telex machine. I was a big user in the 1980s as I was a foreign currency trader at a major bank's dealing room. Deals were done either on the telephone or the telex. I grew very fond of the telex machine and could recognise certain phases on paper punch tape by sight (which came in very handy). I also started collecting telex pictures on paper tape (I still have the paper tape that prints out the Mona Lisa as well as J.F.K.).

[@wb6wsn]

In 1968, I used a Teletype 33ASR (110 baud on a fabric ribbon) with a telephone modem to connect onto a remote time-sharing computer. The computer used Business Basic and we were charged for connect time, processing time and storage space within the processor. I had written programs for capacitor and toroidal inductor design by entering my statements onto paper tape and then dumping the whole thing into the machine in a batch. Several hundred lines of code might take 5 minutes to do a listing. The next big advances were thermal print heads and finally a chain printer (which could pump out pages almost as fast as a laser printer). Sometime around 1980 I acquired an HP Deskwriter, followed by many HP and Canon inkjets in the 90's.

[@jms019]

I used to love going to dad’s office and sending telexes for him. When he started working from home we got a tapeless BT Puma somewhat more advanced than the Post Office machines he had before. I remember the international code being 010

[@33lex55]

lol, flashback to the '70's. For a short while, they were also used to communicate with 'mainframe computers' ( back in the days, when ONE computer would occupy a LARGE room, and was so expensive, that companies and organisations actually RENTED computer time).

[@mr.grumpygrumpy2035]

I used it in the 1980s! It was pretty cool at the time because you could keep a record of the conversation.

[@alexflores7652]

When my mom worked for a TV station in Detroit, MI they had one too and I would love to play with the tape. We called it a "Twix" machine for twx it had a rotary dial to place calls. I was about 7 or 8 years back in 1980-82.

[@kdupuis77]

Interestingly enough, many merchant ships are actually still required to support radio telex via MF/HF frequencies. Most ships I have worked on still have these terminals as they are required under the GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress & Safety System). However, most new builds have redundant satellite comms instead so radiotelex’s days are numbered in this industry as well. It is getting more challenging to get a response when testing the system, though often times I can get replies back from Hong Kong, Perth and Tokyo with some patience. Pretty cool still!

[@davidangelamelcher9591]

In the Air Force in the 1970s, we were using teletype at all of our installations. Looked state of the art to me at the time.

[@wmoore2011]

thanks so much for posting I remember 1978 I was working for Liberty Mutual and they had a telex machine it was high tech for 1978!!!

[@WarpFactor999]

I had an ASR-71 Teletype (baudot code) machine I used with my Ham Radio back in the 60's. Was loud, ate paper and ribbons by the ton, was a mechanical nightmare to work on, but was great fun. Still have fond memories talking to other hams across the world using that machine. This was a really nice short video that brought back many memories. Well done.

[@mrmusiclover4178]

I operated both use the Telex AND the TWX machine on my job many years ago. Telex keyboards only had 3 rows of keys, but TWX keyboards had a standard typewriter keyboard. Messages were "recorded" on punched paper tape. Telex was quite difficult to master.

[@6yjjk]

As a teen, I can remember Dad driving downtown to send a telex from the phone company's head office. This was in Jamaica in the late 80s. At my first job, in Scotland, they had a telex machine. In the three years I was there before they switched it off, I think I could probably count the number of received telexes and still have fingers left over.

[@rogerbarton497]

Fascinating. I worked on mainframe computers in the 1970s which had teleprinters as their console devices. My dad worked on Creed teleprinters in WW2 and I interfaced a Creed 7B to a Sinclair ,ZX80, as well as printing it supported keyboard and tape input. Interesting pronunciation of Baudot, I always took it as "bordot" instead of "Bowdoh".

[@frederickevans4113]

My first job out of college was at the meteorology station at the airport about 2 miles (3.2 Km) from my parents' house. This was 1993 - '94. A couple of Telex machines were used daily to communicate weather data with other meteorological offices and/or airports regionally and internationally. It wasn't the only means of communication, but it was still in use on a daily basis while I was there (and several years after). They had the tape punch/reader and often the messages were punched first and transmitted shortly thereafter. I was one of the lowest level Meteorologists ("class 4") and did much of the grunt work - reading instruments (outside), recording data, converting Imperial/metric units, plotting charts, and assisting in launching weather balloons ([radiosondes] typically done by "class 3" Meteorologists). We also did some of the communications with other weather stations and the airport's control tower (and sometimes, the airlines). The "class 1" & "class 2" Meteorologists were the rock stars. So, at a job I had for about 15 months in the mid-1990s, I saw Telex machines daily and used them from time to time. Am I old?

[@Alda1981]

I use my smartphone to watch this video and the technology of telex still feels insane to me

[@shaunw9270]

Very interesting to see a concise video on the Telex! I left school & started work in 1985 and was taught how to use the Telex for general messaging and one to one operation. A couple of years later ,my next employer owned a Fax machine , but back then you didn't just chuck A4 or A3 paper in , you had specific "Fax rolls" which were like giant rolls of Izal medicated toilet paper which were slightly yellow and the print would start to fade away after a few days.

[@AT-mz8hl]

Shaun W : Three carbon copies. White along with blue, pink and yellow. :)

[@Megadriver]

My dad had a telex in the 90s in his company. I thought it was cool the way it printed back when I was a kid.I witnessed the death of telex and the death of fax. Now, as an adult, managing a car dealership, we don't even have a fax!It's all internet, email and social media. And as usual, a fantastic and informative video. You are becoming my favorite channel for car history and general things you need to know.

[@LittleCar]

Thanks! That's wonderful to hear.

[@larryg3326]

Thanks for the video, brought backs some old memories. When I worked for a newspaper in 1970 there were several of these in the news room receiving stories from UPI and other wire services. The stories were printed and punched into paper tape at the same time. If they decided to run the wire story unedited, the tape would be sent down to the typesetting room where a couple of special linotypes worked directly from the paper tape rather than having an operator type the story in. Over the phone lines, (almost) direct to hot lead type! Amazing jumble of technology. Maybe you'd like to make a video about the linotype. That was an amazing beast, a typewriter full of molten lead and little brass molds.

[@2.7petabytes]

You talking about telex reminds me of The Secret Life of Machines show from back in the 80’s! I loved that show! Though I got reruns being that I’m a Yank and all, lol! Thanks for the video

[@securitycamera8776]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5Kml6Zrjcdge6s Secret of the FAX Machine

[@2.7petabytes]

security camera several of Tim’s shows are on KZbin. It’s such a blast from the past to see them! So much more interesting and entertaining than many of the shows from the last 20 or so years! Thanks for the link!

[@jackkraken3888]

That show is amazing and the entire series is on KZbin. Plus Tim is still around making all sorts of weird things.

[@revmpandora]

@@jackkraken3888 hey! Thrilled to see other people talking about such a great man Tim Hunkin, and a great programme, Secret life of machines. And let's not forget the inimitable Rex Garrod!

[@2.7petabytes]

Jack Kraken yeah I follow Tim’s channel as well!

[@clivepacker]

Worked on Inmarsat maritime satcoms in the early 90s and those had to implement Telex. It was a pain in the ass to get out systems to integrate with all the various networks around the world. Had to support many different coding schemes and analog connection parameters.

[@robfriedrich2822]

Technology for sending fax existed in the 1920's - was a development stage to television. In a science book of 1926 they spoke about doing some fax over radio waves, photographs, hand writing etc.

[@presstodelete1165]

I worked in aviation just before it was transitioning from telex to the web. In the early 90's I got into trouble for causing the SITA network to crash. Meaning there was no worldwide airline cominications for a few minutes. I also used secret message boards to talk to and make friends arround the world, there were several marriages thanks to these hidden capabilities of the Bahamas lost luggage system.

[@Akula114]

Wonderful video. Reminds me of early faxes, where the handset of the phone was literally placed into a receiver on the device. I first saw one of those working in television many years ago. My thought at the idea of transmitting words and text in this manner was, "Jesus, what a clunker. There HAS to be a better way than this." I was seriously under-awed by the technology. Anyway, thanks for the super job. Cheers!

[@stargazer7644]

You must have been working with a very early analog fax machine. In the digital world, only 300 baud modems had acoustic couplers for computers. Modern digital fax machines didn't have acoustic couplers as they operated at 4800-33600 bps.

[@josephwood499]

I remember my dad had one at his office. At that time it was super expensive and only very large companies had one. Our local telecom used to charge an arm and a leg for this devices and their sales people made tons of money during those days. I haven't seen one in years.

[@Oldbmwr100rs]

Old teletype machines made for a great computer printer if you could get one, I remember the clatter of them well. That they did everything, including transmitting and receiving completely mechanically is pretty amazing. My stepfather's newspaper he worked for also had an old FAX machine, coupled with a phone receiver handset and had the fast spinning drum you put paper on and called the machine on the end you were sending or receiving on. It took a while, but worked. I miss this old tech sometimes.

[@zelphx]

Stunned to hear that TELEX still exists at all! FAX is not totally dead... I kind of mourn for my FAX machine that languishes in the bottom cabinet of our home secretary, in our office.

[@AlexanderWeurding]

So incredible that this was used to feed a Altair8080 and had Basic in memory.

[@c128stuff]

Absolutely cool stuff. However, one comment, mostly regarding the description. The 'fax' actually dates back to the 1870s in the form of telefacsimile, which was used over telegraph lines and later adapted to the telephone network, and in practical use alongside the telex by the 1930s. Before the 1930s were out, people even tried the idea of using facsimile over radio to let people print their morning paper at home, wirelessly... :-) The era of early electronics is quite interesting, and its amazing what concepts they got to work much longer ago than most people nowadays realize, despite the often still very primitive technology.

[@greatpar]

Oh yea. I started working with Ansett Airlines in Australia in 1981. We had two of these machines in our Cairns office. First job each morning was to run the overnight tapes into the conversion machine and print the overnight messages. Lmao. Email maybe so much quicker but way more intrusive. Our telex girls were Joan Cadman and Joan Sykes. Love you girls. Xxx

[@billsandford3901]

When i started my internship @ Globe & Mail, we used tell a type, one foe each wire service.late 1970’s. I joined the army the tell a type till the late 90’s.

[@bokhans]

I remember it was always very nervous to type on a connected line so I personal often pre wrote the message and then connected and sent of the message with the strip with holes. I worked in a bank and messages was always in a foreign language and to other countries. We even had a special department only working with sending these messages. With special code books you could calculate a number to verify that the sender where authentic.

[@LittleCar]

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

My first job after leaving school in 1957 was in the Meteorological Office and Met office's world-wide were connected by Telex. Every hour ( or other reporting basis depending on type of Met Office) the teleprinter would chatter into life and ask for our report which we would type in on the keyboard. The weather reports were in five-figure groups. The first group would give the number of eighths of the sky covered by cloud and the wind direction and speed. The next five- figure group would give the barometric pressure and so on ...

[@TheHylianBatman]

This is the kind of old tech I love to bits. Thanks. I've read about this before, but didn't know much of the history. Great job! I've only seen a few of your videos, but I like them.

[@martynbush]

From mid 80's to late 90's I sold photocopiers and fax machines. Many of my customers were in the shipping business and they were still using Telex well into the late 90's.

[@clairebishop9835]

I remember using a telex machine ... we did pretty long messages which took an age to click through. Great vid - thanks

[@intercommerce]

Told me everything I wanted to know we had a Telex machine at IBM head office in the mailroom in early 80s with a dedicated operator, it was huge

[@leenobody3249]

You can still hear and decode RTTY signals on HF frequencies such as 10.100 MHz to this day . It runs weather reports from Germany I think.I used to use systems like RTTY ,PSK ,DPSK etc etc on HF frequencies as a hobby. All very interesting

[@SuperBunkerbuster]

Fax hadn’t a lifespan of only 20 years. It became available widely for businesses in the late 80s early 90s indeed but was in use for decades before. In the movie Bullit from 1968, you can see the police sending documents and the photo of a suspect by fax.

[@jasongomez5344]

My dad made a lot of money selling advertising space in a Swiss international telex directory in Middle Eastern countries in the '70s and early '80s. I remember fax machines taking over in the mid-'80s.

[@smitajky]

I bought a ww2 teletype machine from army disposal. Built a driver board then fed it via a computer program on my Tandy trs 80. It served as an effective ( if slow) printer for some years and I used it to create design parameters for several devices including a stirling engine.

[@MooresGroup]

Started in the media in early 80s, there were still a couple installed in the first offices where I worked to send out government press releases, etc. Transition was already underway to the thermal paper fax printers. But I did see one working, and an older reporter typed in some sort of string for me and it printed something out, I can't remember what, lol.

[@The-Rectifier]

I still remember them, we used it al lot in the 70 and even in the 90's. Rooms full of women, who wrote letters etc...on they're typewriters...other ones, send message and info by the the telexmachine a cross the World. Even Warehouse and stock management, been happens and still been done, by Microfiche ore Microfilm.... The good ol' times...and even now, more on some places...more reliable than all computerstuff. ( cos internet isn't available everywhere ).

[@millomweb]

The place I worked at in the first half of the 90s had a typing pool when I started and I don't think it did when I finished there in 1995. Although others' offices had computers, mine didn't when I started - and when I finished, I had my own e-address. And that's why I finished when I did ! My immediate boss didn't have Internet access, I did - so he had mine blocked - so I left (was only working my redundancy notice in any case - so I earned the same without the travelling expenses !)

[@peterkratoska4524]

heck I remember 300 baud modems when signing on to bulletin boards in the 80s. In 84 I borrowed a monitor with keyboard and modem from my university to do homework. It weighed like 50lbs and had a 4x5 inch monochrome screen (character only) and a rubber telephone interface where you plugged in the phone and then dialed with the old rotary.

[@q80aziz]

The machine is still sitting in my father’s office and I vividly remember the time when it was chattering away sending and receiving on weekdays . The good old days

[@eralehm]

I have actually chatted between Sweden and Libya over an open telex circuit in 1981-82, so I can confirm that it works. It wasn't cheap or very efficient, but telephoning Libya just didn't work in those days.

[@alexanderdickson419]

The fax machine was invented in 1843, long before the invention of the telephone. In the 1860's, fax machines were used to transmit photos between cities for newspapers.

[@robertodelmar1869]

No way in the 1800's! They barely had electromagnetic pulses.

[@alexanderdickson419]

@@robertodelmar1869 Scotsman Alexander Bain created and patented a device for sending images in 1843. In 1863 Italian Giovanni Caselli designed the first commercial facsimile system, first used in France between the cities of Paris and Lyon. One of its main uses was to transmitt photographic images be published in newspapers. The telephone was invented in 1876.

[@wonniewarrior]

I feel this is connected to TTY - Telephone Typewriter. Was used for the deaf community where you typed a message on a keyboard and it was sent via landline to another TTY machine where it was displayed on a early short LCD screen inbuilt - about 8 - 12 characters max. Alot of government departments in Australia back then had them to talk to deaf and hearing impaired customers or their support workers. I used 1 a few times and I feel it is the precursor to the modern SMS system.

[@TonyBlews]

I find all stories about communication fascinating. I've been in IT since the early 90s, with an interest since at least '86 when we ran a field telephone link halfway down the road though a lot of gardens in the middle of the night.

[@zombiebrainstudios]

As a mobile network applications developer it's interesting to see how addressing is pretty much the same for telex and mobile messaging. The only difference is that mobile messaging also has the provider code.

[@benverdel3073]

The big advantage of telex machines was their unique code. Every machine (as far as I know) had its own code, which was sealed and registered. Even long after the invention of the fax we still used them for commercial transactions with the Middle-east, Asia and Africa as they were a valid piece of evidence in a court of law for business transactions. The senders machine code was send at the beginning and the end of every message. Normally these messages were just confirmations of business transactions , at the most they were 15 lines or so.

[@stargazer7644]

The answerback on a telex was simply a configurable string. As a practical matter, you could set them to anything you like. They certainly weren't "sealed and registered." The unique bit was they contained your telex number and a short text identifier so people would know they had reached the right place. A transmission with a correct answerback at the start and end was considered to have been completely received.

[@benverdel3073]

@@stargazer7644 You're absolutely right. Instead of using the word "code" I should have use "identification". Thanks for clearing this up.

[@somdusazerate]

I hope this channel too becomes popular. solid stuff

[@SilentThunder1969]

Served in the Dutch army early 90's as a radio telex operator. fun times.

[@usmale4915]

Great video, well put together. Not only was it informative but entertaining as well! Thank you for the upload! PS: I just subscribed!

[@jovanweismiller7114]

When I worked for the Santa Fe Railroad in 1973-74, all our intercity communications between stations was by telex.

[@angelacooper2661]

I actually used a telex machine in my first job way back in the 1990s. Of course, it was rendered obsolete when Windows computer programming came to my workplace in 1997!

[@WiggysanWiggysan]

2008 ? *WTF?* Did I hear that right ? WOW !

[@tracypanavia4634]

Yeah, and the Swiss still doing it??!!

[@tracypanavia4634]

@Dave Pawson the swiss probably looked after theirs😏

[@transitengineer]

As a person who worked for the military during the 1980's, this was one way you could send a same day message from base to base. However, when talking abut this tech to college age students, I prefer to tell them that it was less like sending a "text message" and more like sending an old fashion E-mail message (without graphics or any attachments).

[@fuzzylon]

I’m old enough to have used telex including the Siemens T1000. It’s like seeing an old friend.

[@paulstubbs7678]

I basically started my work life repairing telex machines, originally Siemens M100, then later Sagem TX20's and later in Australia. Amazing, in that someone other than me knows much about it. If I go on the web and try searching for Sagem TX20, T10, TX35 etc, I usually end up with little to nothing. PS :- I find your pronunciation of Baudo rather unique

[@stargazer7644]

I was one of about 20 people who ran/repaired the telex/twx exchanges in the US at the end of the service. I agree with the odd pronounciation.

[@phyllissnook]

My sister & I used to use a Telex in Exporting Companies in the 1980's!

[@LarryKelly]

Telex hardware became suitable for computer time sharing in the early 1970’s. Who didn’t love their ASR33.

[@duncanjackson4170]

I was really only aware of Big Car until recently, but Little Car is awesome! Thanks for such interesting and well-presented content. 😍

[@shibolinemress8913]

My office had both telex and fax until about 1994, when we completely switched over to fax after all our overseas offices had upgraded. I dearly hated typing telex, because every typo meant I had to start all over again!

[@elfthreefiveseven1297]

5 level paper tape. Had to be able to read that to graduate CTO School in the U.S. Navy.

[@josephgaviota]

In the late '70s, I read 6-level TTS paper tape (for Linotype machines) at my job. Probably if you told any young person you could actually "read" that tape, they wouldn't believe you-but we COULD.

[@johndoyle4723]

Thanks, very interesting, my company used the Telex extensively from the 70s until maybe mid 80s. The main use was to confirm agreements with hauliers, they would not move or collect a load without Telex confirmation. It eventually got put in the basement next to the microfiche machine, and my slide rule.

[@hoofie2002]

Really enjoying these Little Car videos - thanks.

[@aborne]

Thank you so much for this video! I came here to learn what "TELEX" was because there is a telex number on the bottom of Paul Allen's business card from the movie, "American Psycho". Now I know.

[@TheZ1A900]

Great blast from the past was my first job working for firms in the city and a French cable company, T15's ERP 7's oh and that tape that you had to learn to read and wrap it up in a figure of 8 between your thumb and forefinger. We could never get our Telex's sent to Nigeria with the famous answer back of DER meaning out of order. Years later I found out why, because the copper cables were always stolen ! UK's telex answerback for number abbreviated company and "G" for Great Britain.

[@Brian3989]

A couple of little details. In the United Kingdom and most of the world the machine speed was 66 words per minute using 50 Bauds, while in USA it was 60 words per minute using 45.45 Baud. Also Telex did not use tape for the print out, but a roll of paper 8.5 inch wide. UK teleprinters used for Telex service were produced by Creed & Co, initially in Croydon and then moved to Brighton and became part of ITT.

[@LittleCar]

Thanks for the additional info Brian!