Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sun, 2 Jun 91 18:56:07 EDT From: David Lesher Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Free Teletypes Reply-To: David Lesher Message-ID: Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 418, Message 8 of 8 Lines: 50 [about teletype machines and radio stations] I know two stories about news TTY's, from different era's, but with common threads: 1945 {The Cleveland Press}, like any other paper of its time, had many machines. There was the A wire, the sports, etc. etc. Well, they sat next to each other in the City Room, and made non-stop noise. If one was stopped, another three were sure to be running. You just ignored it. If the circuits died, they ran 'open' (clacking but not printing anything) until the loop was fixed. But late that summer, they ALL stopped at once. Dead. The silence was so profound that everyone in the building knew about it at once. Silence continued. After an interval described by one there as "seemingly hours later" but likely only a minute or so, they ALL restarted with the same message -- the war was over. 1970's. At a classical music station of some fame, located on a river with the same name as the Prince of Wales (hint;-}) the machine sat way in the back of the station, in a semi-soundproof phonebooth sized chamber. Now, news is not the forte of classical music stations. If fact, if it were not for some FCC rule I'm sure John Hignon can quote, they'd do away with it entirely. So for the three daily newscasts, the 'voice' would run back, rip off the previous four + hours of stuff, and choose an article or two. Of course, you got time for this task at about 30 seconds before the hour ;_] But that day, somebody at Cheyenne Mountain had loaded and fed, not the weekly NORAD test tape, but the WAR! one. Confusion reigned across the US as the wrong code was used to cancel the bogus message. Some stations ignored it. Others followed the law and went off the air ASAP. The lead station in "our fair city" [the one that the others have CONALRAD receivers tuned to] choose to ignore it. It took hours to straighten out. Can you imagine the look on the personality who finds a forest of paper on the machine, most of which indicates that the USA has been at war for four + hours, and Wxxx is still on the air? Gulp. wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM