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From: Eric.Bohlman@f778.n115.z1.fidonet.org (Eric Bohlman)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: tty
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Date: 18 Oct 90 03:41:49 GMT
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Index Number: 11171

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

The chief reason for "sticking with TDDs" is simply that a lot of people 
already have them (back in the 60's, AT&T released a bunch of old Baudot 
Teletypes for use as TDDs.  This was back when a 300-baud modem would 
have cost thousands of dollars).  The short-term benefits of replacing 
all that existing equipment would be outweighed by the short-term costs. 
It's analogous to a telephone situation that exists in the hearing world: 
the implementation of ISDN.  If you were building the nation's telephone 
system from scratch today, you'd run digital trunks into every home and 
business.  However, that doesn't imply that you could tear out all the 
existing local telephone plant and replace it with ISDN right now; the 
amount of existing (and working) equipment that would need to be scrapped 
would be overwhelming.
The conversion away from the Baudot/Weitbrecht TDDs will have to be a 
gradual process of attrition, with temporary "bridges" like dual-standard 
units and translating modems.

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