Using a 1930 Teletype as a Linux Terminal

Perhaps my favorite video on YouTube is this glorious footage of someone hooking a 1930s teletype up to a computer running Linux: [VIDEO] Watching it for the first time is what finally made ed click for me. And yes, I was disappointed that the author clearly didn't understand why ed has the UI it does. It's about the teletype, not the computational cost of having a WYSIWIG UI.

I've linked this before, but this video of hooking a 1930s teletype up to a Linux computer is what made ed click for me. [VIDEO] It's one of the best things on the Internet, IMO.

Saw this on YouTube last night; [VIDEO] A facinating video that is part of a series going into the restoration of a 1930 Model 15 Teletype. In this video, they use it as a terminal for Linux.

If you haven't seen it before, you might enjoy this: [VIDEO] (Using a 1930 Teletype as a Linux Terminal).

I can second CuriousMarc and Ben Eater for anyone interested in computer engineering. CuriousMarc has an amazing series on the Apollo Guidance Computer, as well as great one-off videos like running a linux terminal on a teletype ( [VIDEO] ). Ben Eater does amazing videos on low level electronics, and has a great series on understanding how a computer really works.

To really understand how ed was useful, it's eye-opening to see exactly what life was like before video terminals. Essentially, think of using your laptop, but instead of looking at a monitor you're reading the output from a printer. So if you type `ls`, you see the directory listing being literally printed out on a dot-matrix printer. Naturally the only way of text editing is with a line EDitor, which lets you edit text one command at a time. When trying to use ed on a video terminal, it obviously looks wasteful. But that's because it was designed before video terminals were a thing. Kind of like using a modern day graphics card to play pong. here is a video illustrating using a teletype: [VIDEO]

Going by the scenario in the first paragraph 1930 might be your answer. Here is a video of a 1930 teletype connected to a linux machine: [VIDEO]

A few recommendations from an avid armchair computer historian: - Dealers of Lightning is a wonderful book covering Xerox PARC's history and contributions. If you don't know what Xerox PARC is, then you should definitely read it. - Where Wizards Stay Up Late is a highly-readable, engaging book covering the history of the Internet's early development. - Soul of a New Machine gives a compelling glimpse into the era when physical machines and unique architectures were more dominant than software in shaping the market. - The Jargon File as maintained by Eric Raymond is not without controversy, but I think it's still fair to say a lot of computing folklore and cultural history is preserved there. [LINK] - Folklore.org is a wonderful, wistful collection of stories from the early days of Apple Computer, as told by some of the engineers and programmers who made it what it was in the 80s and early 90s. - The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace And Babbage is a wonderful graphic novel that's full of utterly ridiculous fiction that's only loosely inspired by the title characters. However, it is jam-packed with footnotes about the actual history from top to bottom, and in my opinion, there probably isn't a better or more fascinating glimpse of the proto-history of the computer anywhere. - Douglas Engelbart's Mother Of All Demos is well worth watching (can be found on YouTube), and maybe reading some commentary on. Mind-blowing what his team put together that we still haven't really matched