Do you know anything Dave about the TWX brand or marketing name (?) used by the Telco's? And was the TWX name used by US Telco's as well?
Terry
At the risk of being too brief, teletype type instruments were first made by Morkrum and also Kleinschmidt Corps. which then merged to become Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corp., which eventually became Teletype Corp. Teletype became a subsidiary of Western Electric in 1930.
In November, 1931 the Bell System inaugurated the teletypewriter exchange service, often called the TWX (pronounced "twicks", Teletypewriter Exchange Service) service (which is the major motivation for AT&T/Western undertaking the union with Teletype Corp. the previous year).
You will find a lot more detail on this history on:
http://www.thocp.net/hardware/history_of_teletype_development_.htmAnd:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TelexA little bit of Teletype history little known outside of Canada:
Many don't realize it, but some teletypes were made in Canada under license from Teletype Corp.; first by Northern Electric, then by Marsland Engineering, which was then acquired in 1969 by Leigh Instruments who continued the manufacture of these machines. This was to get around import duties and taxes at the time which doubled the cost of a teletype imported from the US.
Leigh Instruments acquired Marsland Engineering in 1969 as part of an expansion. Leigh closed their manufacturing facility completely in 1983 to concentrate on other ventures. Unknown to many, Northern Electric manufactured these for a few years before Marsland started building them, but the quality was poorer due to inferior hardening of metal parts as compared to made by Teletype, Marsland and Leigh. For some reason, despite their expertise in manufacturing, Northern Electric never got the hardening process right.
My KSR-33 is a Leigh manufactured unit, but is still Teletype design, only built in Canada. Other than its nameplate, it is virtually identical to the U.S. manufactured units. I have only discovered one difference. Print "bumpers" used on the hammers of print assemblies in the U.S. on Model 32 and 33s were made of a rubber which degrades over time, and the units will destroy the print wheel once they go soft. However, even NOS bumpers still existing in their original bags have gone soft and gummy, making them useless today. Here is where the difference comes, and I discovered it quite by accident.
Here, in Canada, these were manufactured in Canada, and Leigh used a slightly different rubber compound for theirs. It does not degrade like the American counterparts. A couple of years ago, I was given two of these, and have one in use on one of my machines. The other I sent down to the US to use as a sample for a group that was trying to get some manufactured. That still hasn't happened yet, but neoprene tubing slid over the print hammer arm works as an acceptable substitute but still not original, but preventing damage to the soft metal print wheels. Hopefully eventually, the bumpers will be re-manufactured, and they will become available again!
It was a tiny part, but which made a very big difference!
So, that was straying a bit from the topic, but I think it is an interesting twist to the Teletype story! Many of the details in this story were furnished by Ken Gartland, a retired CN-CP Telecommunications employee who was living in Nova Scotia, who has advised me in some of my teletype rebuilds.
Dave
Leigh KSR-33 machine in the museum, given me by Island Tel in 1984, shown after I refurbished it in 2011:
