1. On Anachronism

I was trained initially as a programmer,
and therefore tend to think in programmers’ terms.
In particular, since ASCII (a 7-bit code) fits into 8-bit bytes,
and since programmers often manipulate ASCII numerically,
I tend to think of character codes as if they were simply binary
numbers.

This is a mistake.
A code is just a code – a mapping of meaning to representation.
It happens (well, it happened by design) that in ASCII it is possible
to consider the representation as bits and to do meaningful
arithmetic on them
(‘a’ + 5 = ‘f’, and ‘A” + 5 = ‘F’)
This is not, however, necessarily the case with other codes.
EBCDIC, for example, traces its origins back through the punched card,
and arithmetic in it can get tricky.
More to the point here,
ASCII is as much a 7-bit punched tape code and communications line
control
code as it is anything else.
Several of the more important punched tape and pre-tape
printing telegraphy codes which predated ASCII
were not designed with binary arithmetic in mind at all.

(Indeed, although binary numbers have been known for
centuries,
it is suggestive that all three of the other codes I’ll consider here
were developed prior to the machine implementation of
binary arithmetic by Claude Shannon (1937) and his introduction of
the term “bit” (1948).
For tape-based codes such as the Teletype code, the term “level” is
more appropriate than “bit,”
and for pre-tape codes such as Baudôt,
perhaps the generic term “unit” is best.)

Briefly, I wish to argue that
three important pre-ASCII printing telegraphy
codes were laid out in such a way as to
accomodate their input technologies.
The codes I’ll consider are:

 
• the 5-level code introduced by Baudôt
  [and formalized later as ITA-1]
• the 5-level code introduced by Murray,
  used by Teletype and others,
  and formalized later as ITA-2
  (this code is often mistakenly called “Baudôt,” but it is not)
• the 6-level Teletypesetter code (Morey?)

After seeing these three codes in this context,
it may be apparent that ASCII also was developed in response to its
technolgoies, but that these technological considerations were
different.
Whereas Baudôt/ITA-1,
Murray/TTY/ITA-2
and TTS were developed in response to input and output device
technologies,
ASCII was developed in response to the need to
control networks and do computation.

2. Baudôt

2.1. The Baudôt System (No Tape)

2.1.1. Baudôt as a Multiplex System

With the Baudôt system,
it is important (I think) to understand what it was,
both because it was really quite advanced at the time,
and because it was very different from much that came later.
[
Note
2-1]
At heart it was a system of

multiplex
telegraphy.
Its multiplexing aspect was more important, for it,
than its encoding or printing aspect.
In other words, its advantage was that it was a multiplex system
which increased the utilization of a telegraph line.
That it did so with a constant-length code or as a printing telegraph
was incidental to this.

The term “multiplex” is here used in its modern sense

(MUX, DEMUX):
the orderly sharing of a single resource, over time,
by multiple users.

Herbert
(1920)
notes that
“The Baudôt system enables from two to six operators to work
over a single line connecting two stations,
the arrangements being termed respectively
Baudôt double, quadruple, and sextuple.” (456, PDF 481).
Note that multiplexing (sharing a line) is distinct from
duplexing (simultaneous transfer both ways on a line).
Multiplex Baudôt systems could be either half-duplex (in modern
terminology)
or full-duplex.
Again, from Herbert:
“The Baudôt may be duplexed, giving double duplex,
triple duplex, quadruple duplex, quituple duplex, and
sextuple duplex. With the sextuple duplex there are
therefore six channels in each direction,
and twelve message are sent simultaneously over a single wire.”
(456, PDF 481).

The Baudôt system was a

printing telegraph,
but it was not a
teleprinter or
teletypwriter.
(Tom Jennings makes this point quite clearly in
”
An
Annotated History
of Some Character Codes…“:

http://wps.com/projects/codes/index.html).

That is, on the receiving end it produced its output by printing letters
on tape
(with a typewheel mechanism),
not by printing in two dimensions on a page.
This tape was used for printed output only.
It was not punched.

2.1.2. Some Baudôt Equipment

The Baudôt system could multiplex because,
unlike most earlier systems for printing (and even perforating)
telegraphy it employed a fixed-length code
with each character of code transmitted by machine.
(The multiplexing system could therefore more easily interleave the
characters
typed by multiple users onto a single line.)
However, the keyboard upon which this code was produced had little to do

with conventional keyboards.
Here are two images of a Baudôt keyboard:

[click image to view larger]

(
Pendry,
1919. p. 40.
The same image appears in
Herbert
(1920). p. 457, fig. 287.)

[click image to view larger]

(
Pendry,
1919. p. 41.
The same image appears in
Herbert
(1920). p. 457, fig. 284.)

When I first saw a picture of this keyboard,
I misunderstood it completely.
As I was familiar with tape,
and as I knew that Baudôt was a 5-level code,
I immediately assume that this 5-key keyboard was a sort of direct
tape perforator.
It is not.
In fact, perforated tape is not a part of the original Baudôt system at
all.

2.1.3. Baudôt Code

The Baudôt code was indeed a 5-unit code.
The five units of this code were transmitted serially on a single line.
The Baudôt keyboard, however, allowed the operator to input all five
units of the code at a single time.
Basically (and simplifying),
you pressed the keys down for the 5-unit combination
and a rotating contact read the keypositions and transmitted the code.
It was thus a direct code entry device,
with the operator’s brain providing the data processing facilities
for translating the characters of the message into code combinations.
This is crucial to understanding the code layout,
because (as Herbert describes it)
the arrangement of the code was done in order to make learning it
as easy as possible:

“The five unit code first successfully used as a
Telegraph code by Baudôt was allocated to the letters of
the alphabet in a convenient order for easy learning.

i.e., Keys 1, 2 and 3 were allotted to the vowels,
while the consonants were formed in alphabetical order
by the combination of keys 4 and 5 to the vowels,
thus verification of a letter is always an easy matter.
Unfortunately this arrangement does not suit typewriter
keyboards,
hence the reallocation of the alphabet in the
Western Union and Murray duplex multiplex systems.”
Herbert 1920, p. 479 (PDF 506))

There are several ways to present Baudôt’s code:

 
• In alphabetical order, with the units arranged as
  they are on the
  keyboard
• In alphabetical order, with the units arranged in
  the order in
  which they were transmitted
• A “Plan of the 5-Unit Signals” by Pendry
• In the order of the type wheel

There are also two ways to present Baudôt’s code
which are not
useful in themselves,
but serve to illustrate what it is not:

 
• In letter-frequency order
  (to show its difference from Murray/Teletype/ITA-2 codes)
• With the units ordered as if they were binary digits(to show its difference from ASCII)

2.1.4. Baudôt Code Presented Alphabetically In
Keyboard Order

Here is the entire code in its French version
(as presented by an English writer in 1919),
in alphabetical order:

[click image to view larger]

(
Pendry,
1919.
p. 43.
This same figure appears in

Herbert
(1920). p. 457, fig. 284.
However, in the online version on Google Books, it is difficult to
interpret the figure (especially the superscript characters
and “ERASURE”.)

The English adopted a slightly different variation
(primarily because they had no need for
‘É’,
but with several other differences as well).
Here it is from

Pendry,
1919. p. 44.

[click image to view larger]

Here are the data, redrawn to show side-by-side the
English and French
versions,
and the keyboard layout vs. the transmission order.

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
baudot-alphabetic.svg

This version may or may not render on your screen if you click on it.
It might be useful, however, as a starting point for future versions
(as it is the editable source for the drawing).
Since it’s all old, standard data drawn from public domain sources,
and since the drawing itself is simple
(though it did take a bit of care),
I’m placing the drawing and its source in the public domain.
The same is true of the other code charts I’ve done for this page.).

Analyzing this a little,
here are the vowels (highlighted in red).
Indeed, as Herbert explains,
they use only the right hand, and no other characters use
only the right hand:

[click image to view larger]

(Here is a

link
to the
source SVG file for this drawing,
although it is nearly the same as the earlier one.)

Here are just the vowels.
They occupy only three positions I, II, and III
(giving x^3 – 1 = 7 possible positions;
Baudôt does not include an all-space code).

[click image to view larger]

(The SVG source for this file is in the same file
as the overall alphabetic presentation,

baudot-alphabetic.svg.)

It is also clear from the chart above that
for the consonants in alphabetical order
the left hand follows a distinct grouping:
B-J column IV only,
K-R columns V and IV,
and
W – Z column V only.
The pattern for the right hand within each grouping
is perhaps less clear.

A part of it may be due, though, to the way in which
the numbers are laid out.
They follow a definite pattern,
and also follow first the vowels
(A – O),
repeating this pattern with an additional unit in IV
for the remaining numbers.
It is clearly a pattern;
it is also clearly a pattern unrelated to binary counting.

[click image to view larger]

(The SVG source for this file is in the same file
as the overall alphabetic presentation,

baudot-alphabetic.svg.)

The numbering of the keys (V, IV, I, II, III) is
curious,
but might be explained by the significance of V and IV in forming
the vowel/consonant patterns.
IV alone is also the Figure Shift,
while V alone is the Letter Shift.

2.1.5. Baudôt Code Presented Alphabetically In
Transmission Order

Pendry (1919) is quite clear as to the order
of the transmission of the signals on the line:

“The peculiar order of the numbers of the keys msut
be noted,
and, as it is the regular practice to indicate them by these
numbers,
any deviation therefrom would lead to confusion between stations.
The signals pass to the line, it is true,
in the order I, II, III, IV, V,
and in the receiver the corresponding electro-magnets are arranged in
that
order,
but the keyboard tappers are always put in the two groups,
and numbered as indicated above.” (p. 39)

Actually, the diagrams in the previous section
have already shown Baudôt in transmission order.
There is no need to repeat them here.

2.1.6. Pendry’s “Plan of the 5-Unit Signals”

Before he even assings meanings to the code
combinations,
Pendry (1919) presents a “plan” (pattern) of the code
(Fig. 4, on p. 11).
In this, he he simply numbers the combinations.

[click image to view larger]

To be honest, I can’t figure out why he presents this

“plan.”
He doesn’t use it later.
It isn’t the alphabetical arrangement
(in either keyboard or transmission order).
It isn’t the arrangement on the Type-Wheel (see below).
It certainly isn’t binary.

Here it is lined up with the alphabetic arrangements:

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
baudot-pendry-plan.svg

2.1.7. Baudôt Code Presented by Type-Wheel
Arrangement

The Baudôt code was received by a printing apparatus
which
employed for its printing a type-wheel with relief type on its
periphery.
The order of the type along this wheel was determined by an
exceedingly clever coding arrangement on two intermediate
decoding wheels
(one for detecting all of the spacing units in a character and the
other for simultaneously detecting all of the marking units).
This isn’t really the place to go into detail about this mechanism,
but the resulting pattern is quite beautiful.
Basically, Baudôt invented a shift register.

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
baudot-type-wheel-2.svg

2.2. Carpentier’s Baudôt Tape

As noted, the Baudôt system did not involve punching
tape.
It printed to tape, but that was a visual output medium.
It did not record data to tape.

Herbert (1920, p. 478, PDF 505)
notes that one Carpentier (of Paris)
did develop an input device based on a conventional keyboard
which punched Baudôt code on a tape that could then be fed into a
transmitter.
He does not indicate whether a reperforator was developed.

It is interesting that Herbert refers to this tape as

“cross-perforated” (p. 479).
While someone raised on Teletypes might think of this as just ordinary
punched tape,
Murray’s punched tape (see below) was punched linearly along the tape.

[click image to view larger]

So by at least 1887 we had 5-Level encoding running
across
sprocket-fed tape,
input from a standard (French) keyboard.
However, the encoding scheme was determined not by
that keyboard, or by tape, perforating, or printing considerations
but by the ease of learning the code combinations when entered
on the original 5-key Baudôt keyboard.

2.3. Further Notes on Baudôt as a Code

2.3.1. Baudôt is 31-State, not 32-State

A computer programmer, trained on the powers of 2,
would naturally think that a 5-unit code such as Baudôt’s
would have 2^6 = 32 states.
In fact, however, Baudôt is a 31-state code.

In a communications system where the individual code
characters
can be clearly distinguished both from each other and from the
line’s resting state,
then, indeed, a 5-unit code would be a 32 character code.
However, this ability was only introduced with Krum’s invention of
start-stop coding for the Teletype.
The Teletype is an isochronous system;
that is, the transmitter and receiver must run more or less at the
same speed within each character, but need not maintain synchronism
between characters.
Each “start” pulse resets the system.

Previous systems, including Baudôt’s,
were (imperfectly) synchronous rather than isochronous.
That is, they required the transmitter and receiver to run at
exactly the same speeds at all times.
Since this was of course impossible,
Pendry (for example) notes the techniques used to detect
speed differences so that the machinery could be adjusted more or
less constantly.
(
Pendry,
1919, p. 3 for the manual correction of the Hughes system,
and pp. 27-32 and 96-97 for the automatic correction of the Baudôt
system).

In any system where the start of the transmission of a
character
is indicted by assumed timing rather than by a distinguishing event,
if the system is normally spacing it is impossible to distinguish a
fully-spacing character from the idle state of the line,
and if the system is normally marking it is impossible to distinguish a
fully marking character from the idle state of the line.
The Baudôt system as employed by the British Post Office (at least)
was normally spacing.
There is therefore no all-space character in the code.
(Indeed, the diagram of the code in Pendry,
reproduced in Hausman,
shows a 31 position code with no fully spacing character.)

2.3.2. Baudôt is Not Binary

It is almost impossible for a programmer such as
myself not to think of a pattern of dots as a binary number.
Baudôt’s code is, however, resolutely not binary.
Here’s a version of the chart of the code with an additional
column arranged in binary order
(using the transmission order).
This ordering corresponds to none of the rational orders for the code
(not the alphabetic, or the type-wheel,
or even Pendry’s curious “Plan”).
Baudôt is not binary.

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
baudot-binary.svg

2.4. Summary of Baudôt

The Baudôt code is:

 
• fixed-length
• 5-unit
• 31-character
• not binary
• laid out for ease of learning on Baudôt’s 5-key
  keyboard

The Baudôt system:

 
• did not originally punch to tape
• was a printing telegraph, but not a page teleprinter

The Carpentier tape system:

 
• used a QWERTY keyboard
• used a keyboard perforator (they keyboard neither
  sent nor received,
  but just punched tape)
• punched square holes across the tape in the same
  pattern as
  Baudôt’s keyboard (III, II, I, IV, V),
  not in the order of transmission (I, II, III, IV, V)
• used an “automatic transmitter” to send from tape
  (a “transmitting distributor” in Teletype terminology)
• had no receiving perforator or reperforator
• seems to have been rejected in England

Aspects not necessarily relevant to the present
discussion:

 
• The transmission order was in fact I, II, III, IV, V
• The system was intended for manual keying on
  multiplexed lines
• A Baudôt “recording retransmitter” was a Baudôt
  printing receiver
  plus a relay (it was not a reperforator; it did not use perforated
  tape)

3. ITA-1

3.1. ITA-1 History

3.1.1. Acknowledgment

I would like first to thank Heather Heywood,
Head of Archive Services
for the International Telecommunications Union.
She was exceedingly helpful in tracking down the
first occurrance of the alphabet associated with ITA-1,
confirming the first specification of the signal encoding of ITA-1,
and, most importantly,
discovering the committee report and dates at which ITA-1 was
deleted.
Her assistance in particular,
and more generally the work of the ITU Archives to document ITU history,

have been invaluable to my research.

I should also emphasize that even though they have
been very helpful,
neither the ITU nor the ITU Archives
endorses or bears any responsibility for the present document.

3.1.2. Introduction

The simplest way to put it is that
Baudôt’s code was standardized into the
International Telegraph Alphabet No. 1 (ITA-1).
In practical terms, since ITA-1 isn’t used even among most
teleprinter enthusiasts today, knowing this is sufficient.

However, there seems to be a certain amount of
partial information,
or sometimes misinformation,
concerning the origins of ITA-1
(And sometimes a confusion over ITA-1 itself,
as some websites even claim that ITA-1 was Morse Code
(which is entirely untrue.))
This present section is my attempt to piece together
the history of ITA-1 using, primarily,
the actual ITU standards and conference documents of the time.
The secondary literature on ITA-1 simply is not reliable.

3.1.3. Early ITU History

The ITU has an excellent history section of its
website.
Most of the documents cited here are available through this
“History Portal.”
It is at:

Welcome
to
History of ITU Portal:

http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/default.aspx.
The ITU-T (the current incarnation of the ITU’s standardization
“sector”)
also published in 2006 an interesting overview of its history
(which also includes a general history of the ITU and of
telecommunications
generally):

CCITT
[and] ITU-T 1956-12006: 50 Years of Excellence.

The International Telegraph Union began in 1865.
It is important to realize that it was a treaty-based organization
which conducted its business through periodic conferences.
Some of these were fully empowered,
or “Plenipotentiary,” conferences
intended to revise the underlying treaty.
Others were “Administrative” conferences intended to update and/or
supply many
of the actual operating details.
For many decades after the founding of the ITU,
these technical details concerned primarily
issues of protocol (e.g., which telegrams get priority)
and tariffs.
What would now be termed “technical” standards entered into these
documents gradually and slowly.

At a meeting in St. Petersburg in 1875, the ITU
established
both a new version of its governing treaty and a set of
Telegraph Regulations.
These Telegraph Regulations continued in force until 1932,
with only administrative amendments accomplished through
a series of Administrative Conferences.
In 1932 the International Telegraph Union
held a Plenipotentiary Conference, the International Telegraph
Conference
jointly with
the International Radiotelegraph Conference.
At this meeting, in Madrid, these two organizations merged into one:
the International Telecommunications Union (also “ITU”).
At this time a revised set of Regulations was issued which,
again, continued with various revisions done at various
Administrative Conferences
over the years.
[
Note
3-1]
The subsequent evolution of these regulatory bodies and their
regulations,
especially since World War II,
is complex and largely beyond the scope of the present discussion.

One clarification on the naming of committees is
in order, however.
As regulations became more complex and evolved into more technical
standards,
the work of making them moved increasingly to technical organizations.
These have varied in name and structure over the years.
Very briefly (and incompletely),
the 1925 Paris (Administrative) International Telegraph Conference
established two committees:
the International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT).
and
the International Long-Distance Telephone Consultative Committee (CCIF).

These merged in 1956 into the International Telephone and Telegraph
Consultative Committee, CCITT.
The CCITT became the present “ITU-T”
(ITU Telecommunications Standardization Sector) in 1993.
[
Note
3-2]

As a technical aside,
it is interesting to note that while the first Telegraph Regulations of
1875 were primarily procedural in nature,
even at this date they contained some technical details of the type
now to be seen in “standards” documents.
For example, they defined the characters to be sent using either
Morse Code or the Hughes telegraph system.
They define the encoding of Morse characters and procedural signs,
but not yet the encoding of characters for the Hughes system.

3.1.4. Lisbon (1908) and the Baudôt Character Set

The first occurance of what was to become ITA-1
was in the Telegraph Regulations adopted in (Administrative)
International Telegraph Conference
in Lisbon (1908).
This version of the Telegraph Regulations
simply defined the characters which could be sent.
It did not define their encoding.
[
Note
3-3]

3.1.5. Paris (1925) and the Committee for the Study
of Code Language

This entire section,
tracing activities of a comittee established at the 1925 Paris
Conference,
may be a “red herring.”
I’ll pursue it, though, because this committee has been cited in the
literature as the origin of ITA-1.

The
International Telegraph Conference held in 1925 in Paris
was one such conference of the ITU in the period between 1875 and 1932
for the administrative revision of the Telegraph Regulations.
In addition to simply revising the regulations,
this conference also did several other things, including establishing
the
International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT).
It also established
“a committee for the study of code langauges.”
[
Note
3-4])

As had been the case since the Lisbon conference of
1908,
the 1925 Paris revision of the (St. Petersburg) Telegraph Regulations
specified the characters to be transmitted in the Baudôt system
but not the actual encoding of these characters.
[
Note
3-5])

The Committee for the Study of Code Language
(Comité d’étude pour le langage)
apparently met
“in Paris on 19 October 1925
and at Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) from 2-26 August 1926.
There were also meetings in Washignton on 11 and 13 October 1927
and on the ocasion of the International Radiotelegraph Conference of
Washington (1927).”
[
Note
3-6
and

Note
3-7])

There appears to be some confusion on the part of
present readers
(such as myself) as to what a Committee on Code Language might be
studying.
Authors such as

Beauchamp,

and others I’ve seen online who cite this committee’s work,
take the concept of “code language” to mean character encoding systems
(such as Baudôt or Murray’s 5-unit codes).
However, as will become apparent in the discussion of the
1928 Brussels conference, below,
this committee instead appeared to be studying the issue of the
tariffs to be charged on telegrams sent using what in the US would
be called “commercial codes.”

The next Administrative Convention of the ITU was the

International Telegraph Conference held in Brussels in 1928.
The ITU notes that
“… a protocol on code languages supplementing and amending the
Regulations for international service was approved and signed.”
[
Note
3-7, again])
Yet the

“Protocole portant additions et modifications au Réglement de service
international. (Bruxelles, 1928)”
as reprinted on the ITU History Portal
does not address the encoding of characters.
Rather, it addresses the issue of how to figure the prices to be charged

for telegrams taking into account the use of “commercial codes.”

From all that I have yet been able to discover in ITU
historical documents,
neither ITA-1 nor, indeed, any specification of the encoding of
fixed-unit character codes
existed as of the end of the 1928 Brussels conference.

[TO DO:
Was the Committee on Code Language doing other work which did concern
character encoding?
What was the CCIT doing in this period?
What, in general, was the technical activity which led to the
adoption of ITA-1 in Madrid in 1932 (see below)?

3.1.6. Madrid (1932) and the First Appearance of
ITA-1

The International Telegraph Conference of 1932,
in Madrid,
was a Plenipotentiary Conference
(the first since St. Petersburg in 1875).
It met simultaneous with the
International Radiotelegraph Conference,
and the organizations behind the two conferences deciced to join
together
into a single
International Telecommunications Union
(conveniently, also “ITU”).
[
Note
3-8])

This Conference issued a new set of Telegraph
Regulations,
“annexed” (as more or less technical documents)
to the (new)
International Telecommunications Convention document itself.
These Telegraph Regulations defined the
character encoding of the
International Telegraph Alphabet, No. 1.
It is defined in Chapter IX (“Transmission Signals”),
Article 35 (“Transmission Signals of the
International Telegraph Alphabets Nos. 1 and 2,
Morse Code Signals and
Signals of the Hughes and Siemens Instruments”).
This is pp 31-40 (ITA-1 chart on p. 33) of the official French version
(
Règlement
télégraphique annexé à la convention internationale des
télécommunications – protocol finale audit règlement – Madrid, 1932.

(erne: Bureau Internationale de L’Union Télégraphique, 1933.)])
The only official version was the French language one,
but in London the General Post Office prepared a version with a
translation
into English
(

Telegraph
Regulations Annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention –
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations – Madrid 1932.
(London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1933.))
The ITA-1 table appears on (English) p. 34 of this English translation.

This is the earliest definition that I have been able
to discover
in any document of official standing
of something named the “Alphabet Télégraphique International No. 1”
or of the signal encoding of ITA-1.

Still, questions about it remain unresolved.
In particular, what was the technical activity behind its adoption?
What committee studied and recommended it?
The CCIT? The Committee for Code Langauge? Another?
It is possible that the answers to this are in the “Documents” of the
conference.
These are online at the ITU History Portal
[
Note
3-8, again],
but are in French
(a language I cannot read).

3.1.7. Continuation of ITA-1 after Madrid,
1932-1973

The next International Telegraph and Telephone
Conference
was an Administrative one,
in 1938 in Cairo.
The Telegraph Regulations adopted there retained the definition of
ITA-1.
It is defined in Chapter IX (“Transmission Signals”),
Article 35 (“Transmission Signals of the
International Telegraph Alphabets Nos. 1 and 2,
Morse Code Signals and
Signals of the Hughes and Siemens Instruments”).
This is on p.
[
Note
3-9],
of the official French version and
p. 36 of the unofficial English translation prepared by the
General Post Office, London.
[
Note
3-10],

In 1947, the ITU met in Atlantic City in a
Plenipotentiary Conference.
At this conference, they began the process of joining with the United
Nations.
The documents resulting from this conference were organizational
rather than technical, however.
Where the 1875 St. Petersburg Conference and the 1932 Madrid Conference
issued both an international Convention and also
Regulations,
the Atlantic City issued a Convention only,
without detailed Regulations.
[
Note
3-11],

It is perhaps interesting to observe that in the
period from 1865 through
World War II the structure of the ITU was relatively stable,
with more Administrative conferences to tune details than
Plenipotentiary conferences to change institutional structures.
Since then, however, the ogranization has undergone relatively rapid
change, resulting in more Plenipotentiary conferences than
Adminsitrative ones
(and more recently the technical work once done at Administrative
conferences has been moved into committees).

The next Administrative Conference,
in 1949 in Paris,
supplied the Regulations not present in the 1947 (Atlantic City)
Convention.
These remained similar in form to earlier Regulations
(indeed, to those going back to the 1875 St. Petersburg
Regulations).
They retained ITA-1.
IT is in chapter IX (“Transmission Signals”),
Article 34 (“Transmission Signals of the International Telegraph
Alphabets
Nos. 1 and 2, and Morse Code Signals and Signals of the Hughes and
Siemens Instruments.”),
which is p. 37 of both the English and French versions).
[

Note
3-12],

In 1952 the ITU met in Buenos Aires in a
Plenipotentiary Conference.
As was the case with the 1947 Atlantic City Conference,
the Buenos Aires Conference resulted in a
new Convention only,
without detailed Regulations.
[
Note
3-13],

The next Administrative Conference was in
1958 in Geneva
(not to be confused with a 1959 Plenipotentiary Conference also in
Geneva).
In looking at the history of the ITU,
this Conference seems in a way to be the last of the older style of
Administrative Conferences.
Things changed structurally after this.

The 1958 Geneva Conference issued Telegraph
Regulatiosn which retained
ITA-1.
It is defined in
Chapter VI (“Transmission Signals”),
Article 16
(“Transmission Signals of International Telegraph Alphabets Nos. 1 and
2,
and Morse Code Signals”),
which is pp. 12-21
(ITA-1 chart on p. 14)
of both the French and English versions.
[
Note
3-14],

3.1.8. The Deletion of ITA-1 in 1972/1973

The ITU met again in Plenipotentiary Conferences in
1959 (Geneva),
1965 (Montreaux),
and
1973 (Malaga-Torremolinos).
In each case, a
new version of the International Telecommunications Convention emerged.
This Convention itself was, as before, an organizational rather than
technical document.

Meanwhile, the CCITT
(International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee)
was meeting separately and discussing more technical matters.
In the Fifth Plenary Assembly of the CCITT
(Geneva, 4-15 December, 1972)
“Study Group 1” reported that
“as only five countries still used Alphabet No. 1 and intended to
abandon it,
it has been agreed [by Study Group 1]
to delete the alphabet but to allow its use by bilateral agreement.”
(p. 64 of the

CCITT Green Book, Volume I.
(My thanks to Heather Heywood,
Head of Archive Services for the International Telecommunications Union,

for discovering this reference.)

Heather Heywood confirms that the Plenary Assembly
of the CCITT accepted this recommendation
and that ITA-1 was in fact removed at the
World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1973).

3.1.9. The “Telegraph Regulations” After 1973

Note:
This section really isn’t relevant to ITA-1,
since they were deleted in 1973 on a decision taken in 1972.
However, the changes in ITU organization discussed here are useful
in finding the location of ITA-2 (which is still in effect).
You won’t find it in a set of Telegraph Regulations adopted at an
Administrative Conference and annexed to a treaty, though.

In the system in place until 1973,
an International Telegraph/Telecommunication Convention
would have had a set of Telegraph Regulations annexed to it,
either at the Plenipotentiary Conference itself or at subsequent
Administrative Conferences.
For ITA-1, this had happened in
1932 (Madrid – but at a Plenipotentiary Conference),
1938 (Cairo, Administrative Conference),
1949 (Paris, Administrative Conference),
and
1958 (Geneva, Administrative Conference).
However, at some point after 1958 the technical workings of the
Telegraph Regulations were separated from the Regulations
themselves.
I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but it may have been the
next Administrative Conference after 1958, the
1973
World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference
in Geneva.
[
Note
3-15].
The Telegraph Regulations contained in the

Final
Acts of the World Administrative Telegraph and
Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1973)
open with a
“Note by the I.T.U. General Secretariat:

“The detailed provisions concerning the operation of
the
international public telegram service,
hitherto contained in the Telegraph Regulations,
will now be incorporated in the
Instructions for the Operation of the
International Public Telegram Service.” (p. ii)

The remaining Telegraph Regulations document is
rather short and
very general;
many of its provisions simply refer to the CCITT.

The new task in tracing the history of telegraph
standards
becomes at this point finding the
“Instructions for the Operation of the
International Public Telegram Service.”
This task is more complex since the institutional structure at the ITU
responsible for these Instructions has changed since 1973.

According to the WorldCat international library
catalog,
a document entitled

Instructions

for the Operation of the International Public Telegram Service
was indeed published in 1974.

Another version was published in 1977.
I have not yet obtained either document.

At some point, these Instructions became a part of
the
current structure of Recommendations of the ITU
(now more specifically the ITU-T
(the ITU Telecommunications Standardization Sector).
It is now Recommendation F.1
(
Operational
Provisions for the International Public Telegram Service).
According to the ITU, the editions of Recommendation F.1 are:

 
• 1. 1976-10 (not online;
  perhaps this is the 1977 edition WorldCat lists?)
• 2. 1980-11 (not online)
• 3. 1984-10 (not online)
• 4. 1988-11 (“Reedition of CCITT Recommendation F.1
  published in the Blue Book, Fascicle II.4 (1988)”)
• 5. 1992-08
• 6. 1998-03
• 6.1 1998, Amendment 1 (2007-01)

Only versions from 4 (1988) onward are available
online from the ITU.

However, a study of versions of this Recommendation
from Edition 4 (1988-11) through the current version (1998-03)
is revealing.
It is very, very similar in structure and content to the old
Telegraph Regulations.
It, along with Recommendations F.2, F.4, F.10 and F.11 might be
considered the heirs of the old Telgraph Regulations.
The current version of F.1 (1998-03) makes reference to ITA-2
(defined in

ITU-T
S.1,
International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2).

[TO DO:
Track down
“Instructions for the Operation of the International Public Telegram
Service”
(1974, 1977)
and

Operational
Provisions for the International Public Telegram Service
(ed. 1 (1976), 2 (1980), and 3 (1984))]

3.1.10. Summary of ITA-1 History

Summary:
The International Telegraph Alphabet No. 1
came into existence at the 1932 International Telegraph Conference
(where, also, the International Telegraph Union and the
International Radiotelegraph Conference merged to form the
International Telecommuniations Union).
It was reaffirmed in Telegraph Regulations through
the 1958 ITU Administrative Conference, Geneva.
In 1972, the CCITT recommended that it be deleted, and in 1973 it was.

3.2. ITA-1 Technical

The simplest statement would be that ITA-1 is, indeed, based on Baudôt. But there are some interesting differences.
[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
ita-1.svg

Perhaps the most interesting difference is the
provision of
Carriage Return and Line Feed characters in ITA-1,
taking over for ‘É’ and superscript-T in Baudôt.
The Baudôt apparatus was tape-printing, not page printing.
Yet ITA-1 contains the two codes necessary for page printing,
and the standard refers explicitly to page printers.
I do not know whether any ITA-1 page printers were ever made.

The next curious thing about ITA-1 is that it is
specified in
terms of a polar telegraph system
(negative and positive currents).
The negative current corresponds to a “mark” and the positive to a
“space.”
This is particularly curious as
in the same document
ITA-2 is specified for both neutral systems
(no current and (specifically) positive current)
and polar systems (negative current and positive current)
and in both neutral and polar operation
positive current corresponds to “mark.”
Moreover, Pendry (1919, p. 99) suggests that the system of operation
familiar to him was polar and used positive current for “mark” and
negative for “space.”

So, technically,
a neutral system or one using negative current in any capacity for
“space”
cannot be using ITA-1.
Indeed, ITA-1 as defined is not backward-compatible, electrically,
with the Baudôt systems described by Pendry
(though of course I doubt anyone would have been so fussy).
The curious thing is that they were so specific about it in this way.
This suggests to me that they might simply have been thinking of
some particular machine.

Other than that, ITA-1 seems a pretty direct
extension of Baudôt.
All of the letters and numbers line up.
Most of the less-common FIGURE-shifted symbols have been left for
private use.
Even though it lists 32 code positions,
it is still a “31 bit” code insofar as the final position is
not an explicit signal but rather simply the state of the instrument
being “at rest.”

4. Murray

While there were several other printing telegraph
systems in the
period (some relatively successful),
the next one which enters into this present discussion is that of
Donald Murray.

Murray was active for an extended period,
but the 1905 version of his apparatus looked like this:

[click image to view larger]

(“Setting Type by Telegraph”
in
Journal of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 24 (1905): 566, PDF 601)).

Several of the functional units shown will be more or
less
familiar to a Teletype operator.
There is a keyboard perforator on the right.
(I’m not entirely sure yet, but I do not think that it included
a transmitter; this is not a KSR.)
The next unit to its left, with tape hanging down from both sides,
is the “single line transmitter.”
In Teletype terminology, I think that this would be much like a
“Transmitter-Distributor.”
The apparatus to the rear of the table looks like telegraph equipment
(for this demonstration setup);
the cylindrical object look a lot like a line relay.
On the left of the table is what would be called a Reperforator in
Teletype terminology:
a unit to receive a signal and punch it to tape.
This tape is then fed into a page printer on a separate table.

Here’s a closer look at the keyboard perforator,
with its cover removed:

[click image to view larger]

It is clearly a QWERTY keyboard,
though it has been rearranged just enough to drive a touch typist mad:

What is most interesting, though, is the tape.
It is punched longitudinally along the tape,
not across the tape:

Murray’s code was also a fixed-length, 5-unit code.
Murray’s system was also a synchronous system (like Baudôt’s)
rather than a start-stop system
(like Krum/Morkrum/Teletype after 1919).
The actual character encoding of Murray’s code differed
entirely from that of Baudôt, however.
Here is Murray’s own presentation of his code and
Baudôt’s, in 1905.
Column B represents Murray code as punched on tape.
Column C represents Murray code as transmitted
on what we would term a neutral line.
Column E represents the same Murray code
transmitted on what we would call a polar line
(“the alternating current”).
Column D is Baudôt, represented in transmission order.

[click image to view larger]

(“Setting Type by Telegraph”
in
Journal of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 24 (1905): 566, PDF 601)).

Here are the two codes presented side-by-side,
alphabetically,
in a new chart:

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
murray-alphabetic.svg

It is clear that Murray’s code and Baudôt’s code
are different.
Column A of Murray’s chart gives the clue as to why
(well, it isn’t a “clue” as such;
it’s something that Murray makes a point of).
Murray’s code is arranged in such a way that
the number of punches is fewest for the most frequently
used letters of the alphabet.
(He uses
“ETAINO SRHDLU”,
while Mergenthaler in the 1880s used
“ETAOIN SHRDLU”.)

Murray says of his code,
relative to Baudôt’s,
that
“The only difference is in the allotment of
the letters to the various permutations,
the Murray arrangement being designed to
punch as few holes as possible in the tape.”
(Murray, 1905, p. 567 (PDF 602)).

In other words,
because Murray was using a conventional keyboard from the start,
he could let the keyboard machinery do the encoding translation
(not the operator, as in Baudôt’s 5-key keyboard).
He therefore designed his encoding to minimize wear on his tape punch.
This wear would have been five times that of a Teletype punch,
because his tape was punched linearly and had to use a single
punch serially,
rather than five punches in parallel.

One other aspect of this system becomes apparent
upon inspection:
Murray’s keyboard is QWERTY.
This can be determined by reverse-engineering the numbers:
Q/1, W/2, E/3, R/4, T/5, Y/6, U/7, I/8, O/9, P/0.

Here is the Murray code, in “ETAINO” order,
with Baudôt’s in the same order for comparison
(just to see that it is not, in fact, the same).

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
murray-etaino.svg

One puzzle remains for me with Murray’s code,
however:
although the Murray system included a page printer,
the code does not include Carriage Return or Line feed
characters.
Clearly some method of generating newlines was provided,
as in “Setting Type by Telegraph” (1905) Murray writes
“[at the end of a line]
A key is then depressed which punches a line signal on the tape.
[which causes a carriage return and a line-feed on printing]”
(p. 501, PDF 632)
What this “line signal” is is not clear to me at present.

5. Confused Terms: Baudôt,
ITA-1, Murray, Teletype/ITA-2

The use of the name “Baudôt” has historically been
quite confusing.
The code developed by Baudôt
was used on tape-printing telegraph systems.
It was formalized into ITA-1 with additional codes designed
for page printing systems.
However, it was never used on start-stop telegraph transmission
systems as introduced by Krum for the Morkum/Teletype page-printing
equipment,
and neither Baudôt nor ITA-1 was ever used on such equipment.

The code that was used on start-stop systems was that
which was
introduced by Murray, adopted by Morkrum/Teletype,
and later standardized as ITA-2.

This seems simple enough.
Howver, throughout the period of active use of Teletype systems,
ITA-2 was commonly called “Baudôt.”
Indeed, even today any 5-bit code is often simply called “Baudôt,”
regardless of what it is.
If you were writing a book about Teletype operators in the 20th century,

you’d have to make your characters talk about “Baudôt” code
in order to sound authentic,
even though the code they were using wasn’t Baudôt.
[TO DO:
There’s at least one 1970s vintage Teletype manual that calls the
code “Baudot” – find the reference.]

Murray himself may be the source of this confusion,
although if so it would be better to say
“the misunderstanding of what Murray said.”
Bear in mind that although the Baudôt system originated in the 1880s,
it was French
(and therefore more or less ignored in England).
The 1906 edition of
Herbert’s
Telegraphy,
for example,
doesn’t even cite Baudôt in the index
(although it devotes a chapter to the Hughes system).
By the 1920 edition, of course,
Herbert had to devote a chapter to Baudôt’s system.

So when in a comprehensive 1905 paper on printing
telegraphy,
Murray notes:
“Unquestionably the best alphabet for machine telegraphy
is that used in the Baudôt and Murray systems,”
he was writing to an audience which might have had a limited familiarity

with the Baudôt system.
(“Setting Type by Telegraph”
in
Journal of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 24 (1905): 564, PDF 599)).

Again, in 1910, Murray says of his own system that
it uses
“the Baudôt 5-unit alphabet.”
(“Practical Aspects of Printing Telegraphs.”
in
Proceedings of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vo. 47 (1910): 498.))

However, it is important to realize what Murray meant
by “alphabet”
here.
He might better have said “signaling system.”
Especially in his 1905 paper,
he was discussing the differences between various types
of telegraphic signaling sytems
(Morse code,
the Rowland system used by Siemens and Halske,
the Buckingham system,
Baudôt’s,
and his own.)
The characteristic difference between these various other systems,
on the one hand,
and both his system and Baudôt’s system,
on the other hand,
is that they employed either variable length encodings or
very long fixed-length encodings.
His system, and Baudôt’s,
employed the shortest practical fixed-length encoding.
This is what he meant, I believe, when he said that his “alphabet”
and Baudôt’s were equivalent;
not that they had the same patterns for the characters.

Yet from this initial confusion sprang a century of
misleading colloquial vocabulary.

6. Morkrum in 1917

This present section is a puzzle.
I haven’t figured it out yet, so I’ll just note it and skip it for now.

The argument to be developed below basically traces
5-unit telegraph code used by Teletype and formalized into ITA-2
back to its origins in an earlier code by Donald Murray.
The early codes
used by the Morkrum company (later to become the Teletype Corporation)
are therefore important.
The earliest document of which I am aware which presents the Morkrum
code
is a

B.S.
thesis by Ralph H. Earle in 1917,
The Morkrum Printing Telegraph System.
In it, he presents the code used by Morkum in 1917.
(This would be just prior to the invention of start-stop transmission by

Krum in 1919.
The Morkrum equipment described by Earle is synchronous.)
The puzzle is that the code he presents is not the same as the code
used later by Morkrum/Teletype.

Here it is, from Earle’s thesis.
He presents it as a literal strip of paper tape,
annotated by hand.
The rows on the tape are not exactly square with the tape;
this is due to characteristics of the equipment.

[click image to view larger]

The code as presented above is neither Murray’s nor
Baudôt’s.

7. Morkrum/Teletype and ITA-2

7.1. Teletype by 1931

At some point after 1917,
Morkrum/Teletype changed the code they used to the code familiar
throughout operation of Teletype and related 5-Level start-stop
equipment.
Unfortunately the earliest documents I have been able to find
which specify this code date from 1931,
over a decade after the 1919 invention of start-stop transmission
and well into Teletype production
(indeed, after the introduction of the 6-Level Teletypesetter in 1929).
These documents are:

Teletype
Bulletin 126, Issue 2 (December, 1931),
Description: Type Bar Tape Printer Model 14.

Teletype
Bulletin 141 [presumably Issue 1] February, 1931.
Description: Type Bar Page Printer Model 15.

Here is a comparison of the codes they specify,
in “ETAINO” presentation with
Baudôt and Murray codes for comparison:

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
morkrum-1931.svg

It is pretty clear that the Teletype 5-Level code
is based on the Murray code,
not the Baudôt code.
That is, the principle of its arrangement is that of
reducing the number of punches by assigning
more common letters to code combinations with
fewer punches,
using exactly the same pattern as Murray.
As is the case with Murray’s code,
the allocation of the digits is determined by
the QWERTY keyboard’s top row after the letters
have been assigned.

The allocation of the non-numeric shifted characters
is quite different
in the Teletype code (vs. Murray),
but this is to be expected.
The only significant difference between the two codes is the
curious inversion of the comma and period characters
printed on Teletype tape printers in place of Carriage Return and Line
Feed
when considered in comparison with the corresponding characters in
Murray.

7.2. Mid-Century US Teletype

This code is pretty much the standard 5-Level
Teletype code
common throughout the 20th century.
Here is the Morkrum/Teletype encoding,
presented with military thoroughness in the 1940s.
The only difference is the substitution of “STOP” for the
British Pound sign.

[click image to view larger]

[United States] War Department
Technical Manual TM 11-2222 Transmitter Distributors[,] Teletype Model
14.
(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, August 1945).

7.3. ITA-2

I have not been able to discover any reference to
either
an International Telegrpah Alphabet No. 2
or to the character set transmitted by
Murray, Morkrum, or Teletype instruments
prior to the adoption of ITA-2 in the Madrid conference of the
ITU in 1932.
Prior editions of the Telegraph Regulations
(through the 1928 Brussels (Administrative) Conference)
defined only the
character sets used for Morse Code and for
the Baudót, Hughes, and Siemens instruments.
The 1932 Madrid conference simultaneously issued a new
International Telecommunications Convention
(the first to bear the term “telecommunications”)
and a new set of Telegraph Regulations.
These Telegraph Regulations defined both
the characters and the signal encodings of ITA-2.
[
Note
7-1],

Here is a chart of ITA-2.
It is presented in “ETAINO” order so as to show the relationship between

ITA-2/Teletype 5-Level code and the Murray code.
The chart shows the Murray code (from his 1905 paper),
the Teletype code as used in 1931,
ITA-2 as originally introduced in 1932,
and ITA-2 as it presently exists in ITU-T Recommendation S.1.

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
ita-2-etaino.svg

Several things are clear from these charts.
The US Teletype code is almost, but not quite, ITA-2.
Most of the differences between them are accomodated in ITA-2
as characters definable by the “local administration”
(for example, Figure-H and Figure-D (undefined in ITA-2,
GB and US currency symbols in 1931 Teletype,
and STOP and $ in later Teletype).
The only difference between these two codes not accomodated by ITA-2
is the curious inversion of BELL and Apostrophe.
Figure-S is Apostrophe in ITA-2 and BELL in Teletype,
while
Figure-J is
“Signal acoustique” (Madrid, 1932) or “Audible signal”
(Recommendation S.1) in ITA-2
and Apostrophe in Teletype.

Between 1932 and 1993,
ITA-2 seems to have changed only in the
clarification of details
(and in the representation of signal states).

At the time of writing (2010),
ITA-2 is still defined as an ITU standard.
It is

Recommendation
S.1:
International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2
in the S Series of ITU-T Recommendations
(“Telegraph Services Terminal Equipment”).
Recommendation S.1 is also referenced in

Operational
Provisions for the International Public Telegram Service.
Recommendation F.1 in the F Series of ITU-T Recommendations
(“Non-Telephone Telecommunications Services.”)

8. Understanding the Linotype

8.1. Linotype: Introduction

The next code to consider is the 6-Level code
designed for the
Teletypesetter.
The short answer here is that the Teletypesetter code seems to be a
direct,
and partially (but not entirely) backward-compatible,
extension of the Teletype code.
To really understand the Teletypesetter code, though,
requires some background in the operation and features of the Linotype.
(I am assuming here that you may know quite a bit about Teletypes,
but not necessarily much about Linotypes.
Experienced linecasting folks can skip this section.)

The Linotype is not a printer (it does not produce
any printed output)
and it is not a typesetter (it does not arrange or “set” individual
relief printing types).
Rather, it is a machine which produces as its output a “slug” or bar of
typemetal which has cast upon it in relief the characters of a single
line of type (hence the name, “line-o-type”; the “Lin-” in Linotype is
pronounced “LINE” rather than “LYNN”).
These slugs are then assembled (possibly after further sawing
operations)
into a page to be printed.

This is a Model 31 Linotype:

[click image to view larger]

(From
“The Big Scheme of Simple Operation.”
This was published in a number of forms,
and incorporated into a number of other publications,
by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company
(Brooklyn, NY).
The version from which the images here were scanned is a 1940
separate publication as a booklet.)

People in the Teletype world keep complaining about
how heavy
their machines are.
Linotype enthusiasts have a different perspective.
The Model 31 as shown would weigh somewhere around 3,400 pounds,
depending upon features.
The Model 31 was the standard Linotype model for manually set
newspaper work and general jobbing
from the mid 1930s through the end of production in the late 1970s.
The machine shown here is not configured for Teletypesetter use
(nor does it have a “quadder,” a common accessory),
but it serves to give a good general idea of what a standard Linotype
looked like.

The Linotype was developed in the 1880s by Ottmar
Mergenthaler
and others.
It emerged in substantially its modern form about 1890,
and continued in production until the late 1970s.
After the initial patents had expired, around 1913,
a competing company, the Intertype Corporation,
started to manufacture what would today be called a “clone” of the
Linotype.
For the purposes of understanding the Teletypesetter code,
anything said about a Linotype applies to an Intertype as well.
(There was a third competitor, the Linograph, which was a smaller,
simplified machine. The Linograph company did not survive the
second World War.
To the best of my knowledge, the Teletypesetter was never applied to
the Linograph (although I could well be wrong about this!))

8.2. Linotype: Slugs, Matrices, and Spacebands

Here is an illustration of a Linotype slug.
It is correctly read in the same way that all relief type is read:
left-to-right, upside-down, as shown here:

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

Here is a group of slugs forming a more complete
text.
(Of course, to print from them you wouldn’t just hold
them in your hand;
you’d put them in a framework (called a “chase”) and
put that, in turn, into a printing press.)

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

In order to cast this slug of type from molten
typemetal,
the Linotype uses a multi-part mold.
The part of the mold that forms most of the body of the slug is
fixed in the machine (I’m ignoring many subtleties of molds here,
which aren’t important to the Teletypesetter).
The part of the mold that forms the “face” of the slug
(where the letters are)
is actually composed of many individual molds,
one per letter, all lined up.
An individual letter-mold is called a “matrix.”
(The plural of “matrix” is “matrices.”
Colloquially, they are called “mats.”)
Here is a matrix.
Like most (but not all) Linotype matrices, it actually has two letter
molds
cast into it.
Only one would be used for any given line
(but either could be used, and the Teletypesetter had to be able to
specify which one was used).

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

The illustration below shows an entire line of
matrices assembled for
casting.
(Of course, it shows them just hanging in the air;
in reality they would be held in the machine.)
The mold lines up with only one or the other
of the two lines of letterform-molds in this line of matrices.
The slug which this line of matrices will cast would read
“Linotype’s Big Scheme of Simple Operation”,
either in Roman or Italic (depending upon which position has been
selected).

The illustration also shows another important feature
of the Linotype.
The long thin elements between words are called “Spacebands.”
Each is a double-wedge which when pressed upon from below will
widen.
During the casting procedure, this is done so that the line is
automatically justified.
The space between each word is identical for any given line,
but varies between lines (depending on how tightly the line is
locked up and how many spacebands there are in it).
Spacebands were available in different widths
to accomodate work which might more commonly need narrower or wider
spaces.

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

8.3. Linotype: Recirculating the Matrices

Under the control of an operator at a keyboard
(or a tape control unit for a Teletypesetter-equipped machine),
a Linotype circulates matrices through the machine.
It (and the Operator or the TTS)
assembles a line of matrices,
moves them to a casting position,
and
casts a slug (line-o-type) using their letter-molds.
While the slug is delivered to the user,
the matrices are then automatically “distributed” back into their
storage magazines.
While a line is casting, an operator can be setting a new line.
A good operator was said to “hang the machine”
(a positive term)
when he or she was simultaneously assembling one line
while the previous line was in the process of casting
while the line prior to that was in the process of distributing.

Here is a “phantom view” of a manually operated
Linotype
which I’ve annotated to trace this process.
It is from

The
Big Scheme
of Simple Operation.

[click image to view larger]

Assembly:

Start at (1).
Matrices are stored while in use in one or more
“magazines” mounted on the machine.
Each magazine contains a single font of matrices.
(Simplifying,) each magazine has 90 vertical channels,
each of which holds up to 20 matrices of a particular character.
Depending upon the machine, either one or two magazines may be in
operation at any given time (if there are three or four magazines
mounted on the machine, these must be moved into position manually
for use).

Under the control of a keyboard (5),
escapements at (2) release the matrices from the magazines.
The matrices travel through the Assembler Front (3),
which consists in part of free-fall and in part of an inclined belt.
They are assembled in the Assembling Elevator (7).
An operator (but not a Teletypesetter) can add or subtract matrices
by hand at this point.
Spacebands, as desired, are dropped straight down from the
Spaceband box (4) into the line as it is assembled.

When the operator presses down on the handle (6),
the Assembling Elevator rises to position (8).
At this point, the operation of the rest of the machine
enters an automatic cycle.
The line of matrices is transferred through (9);
at the same time, the Assembling Elevator (7) may be lowered
and a new line begun.

The line of matrices continues its transfer and is
moved into
the jaws of the First Elevator at (10).
The First Elevator then descends with the line of matrices to
Casting Position (11).
The cast occurs, and the resulting slug is delivered to on the
Galley (12).

Once the casting has occurred, the First Elevator
rises to
position (13) and begins the Second Transfer of the matrices.
The Second Elevator (16) desends to position (14).
The line of matrices slides onto the Second Elevator,
where the Combination Teeth of the matrices engage corresponding
rails in the Second Elevator.
At this point any matrices which have no Combination Teeth
drop off and fall into the Quad Box (15).
These are usually larger matrices, such as logotypes,
which will not fit through the regular distribution mechanism.
The Second Elevator rises (in this picture, it is shown at (16)
rising with a line of matrices on it).
The spacebands have no Combination Teeth (but are also designed not
to fall into the Quad Tray).
They remain at (14) when the Second Elevator rises,
and are then gathered by an arm and returned to the Spaceband Box (4).

The Second Elevator rises to (17),
and the line of matrices is pushed off it,
through the Distributor Box (not identified here),
and onto the Distributor Bar at (18).
The pattern of rails on the Distributor Bar engages the Combination
Teeth
on the matrices in such a way that the matrices slide along it
until exactly the point where they are over their proper channel
in the Magazine.
They then fall off the Distributor Bar
and re-enter the Magazine to be re-used.

Any matrices which have all seven pairs of
Combination Teeth present
will not fall off of the Distributor Bar.
Instead, they pass all the way through the Distributor and exit it
on the right.
They then fall down a chute (19) and are collected on the
Pi Stacker (20).
These matrices are typically special characters that are not accomodated

by the magazine/keyboard layout.
The operator keeps such matrices in a
Sorts Tray shown just above (20) and inserts them manually into
the Assembling Elevator (7).
The Teletypesetter cannot, of course, do this.

8.4. Linotype: The Keyboard and ETAOIN SHRDLU

As was seen earlier,
the Murray and therefore the Morkrum/Teletype keyboard layout is
deeply tied to the pattern “ETAINO SRHDLU”.
For different reasons stemming from similar cuases,
the Linotype is deeply tied to the pattern
“ETAOIN SHRDLU”
(unless you’re in France, where the pattern is
ELAOIN SDRETU,
as readers of the Belgian comic

Le Petit Noël know well).

As the matrices in a Linotype descend through the
Assembler Front
((3) in the annotated illustration above),
they fall freely for some distance and then travel on a diagonal belt.
There is some possibility that a fast operator might first release
one matrix and then release another to its left before the first
matrix had passed the location of the second.
This would result in a transposition in the line.
To minimize this, it is desirable that the most commonly used matrices
do as much of their traveling as possible in free-fall
and as little as possible on the belt
(the belt, while fast, is slower than free-fall).
This means that the layout of the matrices in the magazine starts out,
left to right,
with the most commonly used letters.
Mergenthaler identified this pattern as lowercase “etaoinshrdlu…”.

The Linotype keyboard, shown below, corresponds to
this magazine layout.
(In this section I’m using Linotype keyboard diagrams which reflect
manual operation, not Teletypesetter operation.
The principles will remain the same when moving to the TTS,
but some of the keyboard details will no doubt change.)

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

Here’s a clearer diagram of a keyboard layout itself,

for a standard 90-channel magazine arrangement.

[click image to view larger]

(From

Useful

Matrix Information: p. 84.)

The numbering of the keys
(‘e’ = 1, ‘t’ = 2, etc.)
corresponds to the left-to-right arrangement of the channels of matrices

in the magazine.

A study of this keyboard diagram reveals several
points which will
be significant for the Teletypesetter.

First, the Linotype (and any telegraph controlling
it) must represent
both lowercase and uppercase.
The Linotype keyboard does not use a shift key like an ordinary
typewriter,
but instead duplicates the lowercase and uppercase keys.
(The Teletypesetter, as it turns out, did use a shift to get to
uppercase.)
The left third of the keyboard contains the lowercase alphabet.
The right third contains the uppercase alphabet.
The middle contains a miscellany of characters;
some of these will be relevant to the Teletypesetter, while some will
not.

The left third, nearer to the middle, contains
several characters which
may be unfamiliar.
These are the “ligatures”: fi, fl, ff, ffi, and ffl.
On a typewriter, these are typed as separate characters.
However, in fine printing these letters must be set much closer to each
other,
often joining into a single glyph.
Because of its use of a line of discrete matrices,
the Linotype could not accomplish this using successive matrices.
(There will always be a space, however slight, between an ‘f’ and an ‘i’

following it; good typography requires that they touch.)
The Linotype solution was to provide these as separate matrices,
in separate magazine channels,
controlled by separate keys.
The Teletypesetter had to accomodate this.

The middle third contains the digits, of course.
It also contains some standard punctuation.
In addition, it contains Spaces and Leaders.
The Linotype achieves line justification by the use of spacebands,
as described earlier.
However, it is also useful to have fixed-width spaces of
various sizes.
The Linotype provides three:
an “Em” space, and “En” space, and a thin space.
To a printer, an “Em” space is a space the width of which is exactly
equal to the height of the type.
So for 12 point type, an Em space would be 12 points wide
(even if the ‘M’ character happened to have a slightly differen width).
An En space is half the width of an En space.
A “thin” space is thinner, but its exact width is left to the
type designer.
A “Leader” is a row of dots (which, when set successively,
lead the eye across the page).
These were provided in Em-wide and En-wide versions
(keys 32 and 38;
if you’re wondering why the “shifted” versions of these keys appear
underneat the regular versions on the keycap,
wait until the discussion of the upper and lower rails later).
A thin space usually provided just another thin space in both positions
(there isn’t much room on a thin space for anything else).
The standard keyboard also provided Em spaces and Em leaders in
an opposite combination (key 60).

The middle third of they keyboard was also used in
manual operation
(but not TTS operation) to provide small caps.
These appear in an essentially random layout dictated by space remaining

after other things were accomodated.

The right third of the keyboard contains the
uppercase letters
in the same ETAOIN pattern,
along with other punctuation and less usual characters
(the ‘oe’ and ‘ae’ digraphs, and the ‘lb’ symbol).
Note that the Linotype distinguishes between the hyphen (key 43)
and the longer Em-dash (key 90);
the Teletypesetter retains this distinction.

By “Fractions Pi” the diagram means that matrices
containing
characters as fractions (e.g., “1/2” as a single character)
were not accomodated in the magazine or keyboard, but instead
were inserted by hand by the operator.
(“Pi,” to a printer, means mixed-up or jumbled type or matrices.)
It was also possible to arrange a magazine/keyboard such that these
fractions ran in the magazines.
Here is a keyboard layout for this:

[click image to view larger]

(From

Useful

Matrix Information: p. 85.)

The fractions simply replace several of the
lesser-used ligatures
and punctuation characters.
The Teletypesetter retained the possibility of running fractions.

There were innumerable other keyboard layouts for
manual Linotype
operation
(especially for non-English typesetting both internationally and
in non-English newspapers in the U.S.)
An examination of Teletypesetter Corporation “Specification” documents
from the 1930s indicates that to a great extent the Teletypesetter
Corporation supported unusual arrangements on a per-customer basis.
The two keyboard arrangements above, however, will suffice for the
present.

8.5. Linotype: Combination Teeth and Distribution

[TO DO;
although it is not relevant to the TTS code,
Mergenthaler rediscovered binary counting as a basis for mechanical
sorting.
For a study of this, see:

Decoding
Matrices 2:
Teeth, Channels & Characters/Fonts
in

The
CircuitousRoot
Typefoundry and Press.
]

8.6. Linotype: The Upper and Lower Rails

Take another look at the Linotype matrix as shown
earlier.
It has not one but two letterform molds on it.
(Some matrices for very large type had only one mold,
but we can ignore that here.)
Generally, the two positions on the matrices in a font of matrices
were coordinated typographically.
One might contain the Roman version of the typeface,
while the other might contain the Italic.

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

The Assembling Elevator in a Linotype has two sets of
“rails” on which a
matrix rests: a regular or lower set of rails,
and an optional upper set of rails.
If the upper rails are engaged,
the operator can select whether a matrix will sit on the lower rails
or the upper.

Because of the way in which a Linotype matrix is
oriented in the machine,
this means that of the two letterform molds on the matrix the
regular one is the upper (used when the matrix sits on the lower rail)
while the alternative one is the lower
(used when the matrix is raised up onto the upper rail).
(This, by the way, is why a Linotype keyboard will show alternative
symbols for a key below the regular ones.
This seems backwards only if you’re trained on a typewriter with a
shift key.
The Linotype has no shift key, and the positioning of the symbols on
the keycaps corresponds to their positions on the matrices.)

Here is a view of the Assembling Elevator,
shown mysteriously detached from the Linotype itself.
As shown,
the matrices on the left (spelling “Linotyp”)
are on the upper rail and so their lower casting position
lines up for use.
The three matrices to the right
are on the lower rail, and so their upper casting position
will line up for use.
The Upper Rail itself is called out as “1”.
The short extension of it being manipulated by the
operator is used to select whether incoming matrices
assemble on the upper rail or
(in the state shown here) the lower rail.
By moving the lever to the left, the upper rail
can be disengaged entirely.

[click image to view larger]

(From The Big Scheme…)

The Teletypesetter, therefore, must be able to signal
to the
Linotype that a matrix should be assembled on the lower rail or
the upper rail.
In practice, the TTS code does this with a shift:
“Upper Rail” to cause matrices to start being assembled on the upper
rail,
and “Lower Rail” to cause them to start being assembled on the lower
rail.

8.7. Linotype: Quadding

“Quadding” is the last major function of the Linotype
that
the Teletypesetter must accomodate.
It is a simple concept, although it can be perplexing to those without
printing experience.
I’m not sure that a picture of a quadder will help here,
although seeing one in operation makes its use clear immediately.

In traditional hand-set typography,
a “quad” (“quadrat” to the English) is another word for an Em Space.
It’s a square space.
If a line is to be set flush left (for example), quads and other spaces
must be added to the line to fill it out to the right.
This process is termed “quadding.”

An analogous method is used on a Linotype when the
machine is
not equipped with an automatic “quadder”
(and the quadder was always an optional device,
even though it became a very common one).
The operator would “quad out” the line manually using Em Spaces and En
Spaces
(not spacebands, for reasons that aren’t relevant here).

This process was of course tedious. A quadder
automated it.
A quadder manipulates the jaws of the vise in which a line is held
for casting so that the jaws themselves move and automatically
fill out the line.
Moreover, the quadder was also built so that it could, optionally,
“quad right” (set flush right) or center a line
(quad equally from both left and right).
It could also be disabled for regular full-justified lines.
Lines which are quadded are set entirely with fixed-size spaces,
not spacebands
(mechanically, you don’t want the spacebands trying to expand the line
while the quadder is trying to compress it).

The Teletypesetter accomodates all three kinds of
quadding: “Quad Left,” “Quad Center,” and “Quad Right.”

8.8. Linotype: Other

Toward the end of the Teletypesetter era,
the capabilities of the system were expanded to include
control of other features of the linecaster previously controlled
manually.
Some Linotype “Elektron” models, for example,
could change magazines under TTS control.
The Mohr Lino-Saw company also figured out how to use the TTS to
control their linecaster-attached slug saw.
None of these later, advanced features are relevant to the present
discussion, however.

The other aspects of linecaster tape control that are
easy for
“software” people to overlook
have to do with keeping the machine running.
The Linotype and Intertype,
while remarkably reliable machines,
were also remarkably complex machines designed to be run by a
skilled operator.
In addition to typing, the operator cleared jammed matrices from the
machine, and generally kept it in order.
The fact that the machines were run harder (faster) in TTS operation
didn’t help here.

A linecaster under TTS control, therefore,
had to be in much better operating condition than normal.
Linotype published special maintenance instructions for this.
Additionally, the machines were often “instrumented” with additional
apparatus to detect mats gone awry
(Teletypesetter had their own unit for this,
but the most successful mat detector was the Shaffstall.)

These considerations are all important in
understanding the
Teletypesetter
(and why the tape control of linecasters took decades to accomplish).
They are not, however, relevant to understanding the code.

9. The Teletypesetter

The Teletypesetter system may be a bit unfamiliar
both to
Teletype and to Linotype enthusiasts,
so perhaps a bit of potted history is in order.

The idea of controlling a Linotype by telegraph or
tape is not new.
The initial interest of Frank Pearne in printing telegraphy
(which led, through his collaboration with Charles Krum and Joy Morton,
to the Teletype) included Linotype control.
[
Note
9-1].
Independently, Donald Murray was interested in Linotype control as well.

His paper

“Setting Type by Telegraph.” (1905)
actually only considers this very briefly
(p. 593 / PDF 638).
Interestingly, Murray indicates that “three years” previously
the Mergenthaler Linotype Company had experimented with using Murray
apparatus.
Murray’s conclusion, however, is that:

“All that can be said about automatic typesetting by
telegraph is that
it is a possibility of the future,
and that if it is done it will have to be done on the lines of the
Murray apparatus,
because the Murray system alone is practical both from the newspaper
and from the telegraphic point of view.” (p. 593 / PDF 638)

Insofar as the Teletype code is Murray’s code,
and the Teletypesetter was in most respects a Teletype derivative,
Murray was quite correct.

(Proponents of the Monotype,
a competing system of “hot metal” type composition,
will of course note that the Monotype was controlled by tape from
its initial design.
However, the Linotype dominated the newspaper industry,
both because of its greater speed and because it
produced easy-to-handle slugs of type (the Monotype cast individual
types).
The greatest field of application of telegraph control to type
composition
was the newspaper industry, so it was the Teletypesetter controlling
Linotype (and Intertype) linecasters which dominated the
telegraph control of hot metal composing machinery.)

The Teletypesetter itself began in the 1920s with an
interest by
the Rochester (NY) newspaper publisher
Frank E. Gannett
in such a system.
He investigated this with the engineer
Walter W. Morey,
but they discovered that Teletype (then Morkrum-Kleinschmidt)
held blocking patents.
They therefore went to Morkrum-Kleinschmidt to develop the system.
Its development there was undertaken by
E. Kleinschmidt (as vice president of Morkrum-Kleinschmidt,
but also an enginer of note)
and Dr. L. M. Potts (as research engineer).

Snyder

cites an initial public demonstration on Dec. 6, 1928,
at the Rochester Times-Union.
[
Note
9-2]
The US Patent and Trademark Office record for the (now lapsed)
trademarks (in two categories) “Teletypesetter”
gives a date of first use of
1928-11-15.

Although the Teletypesetter was available from the
early 1930s,
it took a while for it to become widely accepted.
The Associated Press did not adopt it until 1951,
and it was not until 1962 that AP linked all of their TTS circuits
into a single network.
[
Note
9-3]
and
[
Note
9-4]
By the end of “hot metal” composition in the newspaper industry
in the 1970s, however, the TTS was in widespread use.
The Teletypesetter Corporation itself was spun off to Fairchild
in 1958
[

Note
9-5]

By that time competing systms had been developed as
well
(especially the Mergenthaler Linotype Company’s
Linomatic Tape System (LTS)
[
Note
9-6]
and the Star Parts Company
Star Autoperf and Star Autosetter systems
[
Note
9-7]
and some auxiliary third-party equipment had been introduced
(especially the Shaffstall Mat Detector
[
Note
9-8]).
In addition, standalone tape and computational equipment was developed
(for example, the Compugraphic “Justape,”
which could read a “straight” (non-TTS) news story from tape,
justify it for the linecaster,
and then reperforate it to a new tape
[
Note
9-9]).
In the end, TTS equipment merged into tape-controlled
phototypesetting composing machinery
(Mergenthaler Linotype’s Linoquick Perforator,
for example,
could feed both a conventional hot metal Linotype and the
“Linofilm Quick ‘phototextsetter'”
[
Note
9-10]).

The reasons for the success of the Teletypesetter
have,
however,
worked against its preservation.
It was used primarily by large newspapers.
These were the first to scrap it when new technologies came around.
The few surviving Linotype shops tended to be smaller shops which never
had TTS.
Moreover, the TTS seemed to split into two communities.
To a Linotype operator, the TTS was just another way to control a
Linotype
(and not necessarily the fun way;
old Linotype operators sometimes speak of TTS-equipped Linotypes as
“robots.”)
On the other side of things,
a Teletype(setter) operator might never see a linecaster.
The remaining Model 20 Teletype printers (capable of 6-Level TTS
operation) are now simply seen as upper-and-lower-case Teletypes.

There was, however, quite a lot to the system.
One good overview of the mature system is Fairchild’s

More
Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.
Here (drawing in part from that document)
is a very brief survey in images of the Teletypesetter:

In most installations,
the linecaster was controlled by a
“Teletypesetter Operating Unit” (TOU)
attached to the linecaster keyboard.
A machine so equipped could be run either manually or under tape
control.
In the image below, the TOU is visible to the
right of (and underneath) the keyboard.

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

Later, things became sleeker and more integrated.
Here is a Linotype “Elektron” from around 1962.
It is equipped with the Teletypesetter-compatible
Linomatic Tape System.
A few later machines even eliminated the keyboard entirely.
For all its automation, however, it still has a pi stacker,
and you could, if you wanted, still put mats in by hand.

[click image to view larger]

(From

Elektron:

The Ultimate in Automation.)

The tape was punched on a keyboard perforator.
This had a QWERTY (not ETAOIN) keyboard,
with extra keys for TTS-specific functions.
The pointers and scales indicated the line length for which the
linecaster
was set,
the length of the line already typed,
and the room for the spread of the spacebands.
Just as in the direct use of the Linotype,
there was considerable operator skill involved in deciding how long a
line
should be and where lines should be broken.
(Old Linotype operators generally cringe when reading modern newspapers.

In a linecaster-set newspaper, a human brain was involved in
typesetting every line.
The computer algorithms just aren’t that good yet.)
Considerable operator skill was also involved in seeing what had been
punched.
The operator had to read the punches on the tape directly to do this.
To the best of my knowledge, no Teletypesetter Perforator ever
printed (either to tape or to page).

The tape take-up reel to the left of the punch was
available in both
clockwork-drive and electrical-drive models.

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

The unit shown above is a “Standard Perforator.”
Linecaster matrices are of various widths
(vs. fixed-pitch typewriters or Teletype printers)
A Standard Perforator was used when the linecaster was set up for
“unit fonts” of matrices.
These were designed to a particular set of widths.
A “Multiface Perforator” (shown below)
used a “counting magazine” which told the Perforator how wide
the mats of the desired font were.
(All TTS operation involved the use of specific fonts of mats
for which there was TTS support – either a unit font or
one for which there was a Multiface magazine.
You couldn’t run just any old font of mats and expect it to work.)

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

Here’s a closer look at the “Indicator Scale”
by which the Perforator operator judged
the spacing and division of lines.

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

The

Teletypesetter
Perforator Operator’s Training
Reference Manual (1953)
uses this same illustration and explains it thus (pp. 41-43):

“On the Teletypesetter Perforator,
line justification is achieved by means of the Counting Scale
with it three pointers –
the Counting Pointer,
the Left-Hand Spaceband Justification Pointer,
and the Right-Hand Spaceband Justification Pointer…

[I would insert here that the length of the line as
set up in the
linecaster mold is read on the Counting Scale, from right to left.
The Counting Scale itself is adjusted to set this length on the
Perforator.]

“The counting pointer moves along the counting scale
from
left to right as the keys are depressed for the various characters.
The distance that the counting pointer moves for each keystroke
depends on the matrix width of the character selected.
…
Thus, as the counting pointer moves along the counting scale,
it registers the cumulative widths of the characters used in the line.

“When the space[band] bar is depressed,
the counting pointer remains stationary – but the counting scale itself
… moves from right to left.
This movement of the scale measures the thin part of the sapceband
(the minimum width of the sapce).
At the same time, the left-hand spaceband justification pointer
moves to the left a distance corresponding to the thick part of the
spaceband (maximum space width)…

“When the counting pointer moves into a position
between the two
spaceband justification pointers, the line is considered to be
within the ‘justification range’ and may be ended by
depressing the return (RET) an then the elevate (ELEV) keys.

“The spread … between the two spaceband
justification pointers
represents the allowable range for ending the line…

“If the line is ended
before
the counting pointer has passed the left-hand spaceband justification
pointer,
the result will be a loose line which will not cast a ‘slug’
on the linecasting machine.
If the counting pointer is
beyond the right-hand
spaceband justification pointer, a tight line will result.
…
Either condition may cause damage to the equipment.”

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

In addition to this linecaster-specific equipment,
there was also the “Teletype side of the house.”
The Teletype Model 20 page printer is a 6-Level machine
adapted from the standard 5-Level Model 15.
This was Teletype-branded equipment.

For a KSR (Keyboard Send-Receive)
version of the Teletype Model 20,
see

Teletype

Bulletin 161,
Description:
TypeBar Page Printer Model 20..

There was also a 6-Level Transmitter-Distributor for
Teletypesetter use.
The unit shown below looks a lot like a standard 5-Level Model 14 TD;
I do not know its Teletype model number, however.

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

The opposite of a Transmitter-Distributor is a
Reperforator.
There was a 6-Level TTS Reperforator as well.
I do not know the Teletype model number for this unit.

[click image to view larger]

(From

More

Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting.)

While you could carry a tape by hand from a
Perforator or
Reperforator
to a linecaster’s TTS Operating Unit,
you could also link a Reperforator up to a TOU pretty directly:

[click image to view larger]

(From

[Fairchild/TTS]
New High-Speed Transmission Equipment.
The TOU in the image above is Fairchild-branded,
but the TD is Teletype-branded.)

Especially later,
after the TTS became widely accepted,
more specialized equipment became available.
The image below is of a Fairchild
TTS Selective Allotter:

[click image to view larger]

(From

Fairchild

TTS Selective Allotter.)

By way of explanation:
There were two basic points to the Teletypesetter:
(1) to provide for remote use of a linecaster via a telegraph circuit,
and
(2) to maximize the throughput on the linecaster.
As far as this second point was concerned,
there were two basic bottlenecks:
Linotypes can cast faster than even the best Linotype operator can type,

and changing a Linotype from one kind of work to another is slow
(it involvs changing heavy magazines of fonts, possibly changing
molds, and so forth).
With TTS, multiple TTS Perforator operators could generate tape fast
enough
to keep a linecaster occupied.
If, in addition, you could dedicate a linecaster to a special type of
work (general news copy, the classified section, etc.) then you
could avoid the downtime of changing the machine setups.
(A large newspaper might have dozens of linecasters.)

The TTS Selective Allotter acted as a switch to
facilitate this.
Work was divided into up to three “groups” (types of work),
and up to 10 linecasters were configured so as to be in one of these
three groups.
The Selective Allotter had up to 15 input channels,
each of which could be either a
wire service feed or
a local Perforator/Transmitter-Distributor combination.
The input channel could specify what group its input was part of
(and this could change from one chunk of input data to the next;
a single Perforater operator could punch general news stories for a
while and then switch to the classifieds by operating a simple switch).
The allotter then took all of this input as it was presented
and routed (allotted) it among the output linecasters
in such a way as to keep each linecaster in each group as busy as
possible.

I have no idea whether Fairchild sold many of these
or not,
and how many of them might survive.
No small shop would have needed one,
and no large shops stayed with hot metal.

This isn’t the place for a comprehensive list of
third-party
TTS-related equipment,
but I’ll show one more item just to give a sense of the range involved.
This is the Compugraphic Corp. “Justape”
(shown here in the Mergenthaler Linotype Corp. rebranding as the
“Linasec Justape”).
This was a standalone computer.
It read in a 6-level tape containing TTS data entered without regard
for line length or justification
(so that the Perforator operator didn’t have to think, but could just
type).
It computed the end-of-line and justification decisions for this data
and punched out a TTS-ready tape for use in either a
linecaster or in a Linofilm Quick phototypesetter.
The output punch was a standalone Teletype BRPE High-Speed punch.

[click image to view larger]

(From

Linasec

Justape Operating Instrutions.)

10. The Teletypesetter Code

The previous two technical histories of the Linotype
and the
Teletypesetter are simply by way of introduction to the
Teletypesetter code itself.
Unless you understand the Linotype and its requirements,
and the way in which the Teletypesetter constituted a complete
system of telegraphically controlled automation,
the TTS code isn’t comprehensible.

For all that, the TTS code turns out to be quite easy
to understand –
if only you look at it with the proper historical context.
Traditionally, this was not done.
This is the way the TTS code is usually presented:

[click image to view larger]

This is from a little plastic pocket rule that was
probably given out
as a promotional item by Fairchild.
This presentation (given a document code of “TS 729” is basically the
same as the others I’ve seen
(one coded “538 TS” in

Teletypesetter
Perforator Operator’s Training Reference Manual.
or a larger fold-out Fairchild chart coded “668 TS”)

The problem with it is that the layout of the code on
it is
designed to be easy to learn
(at least someone at Teletypesetter and/or Fairchild thought it would
be easy to learn with this layout).
It is set up in regular, but not-quite-repeating patterns.
They aren’t binary.
Moreover, the order of the columns along the tape is
backward with respect to traditional Teletype use
(counting 5,4,3,2,1,0 left-to-right,
where the standard TTY presentation is 1,2,3,4,5).

In

Teletype

Bulletin 161,
Description:
TypeBar Page Printer Model 20,
it is presented alphabetically,
but with an even more curious column ordering:
1,2,3,4,5,0.

What one needs to do in order to make sense of this
is to lay the
code out according to its underlying principles.
As it turns out, TTS code is a direct development of TTY code,
which in turn is based upon Murray’s code.
The proper order for it is, therefore, “ETAINO…”:

[click image to view larger]

Here is a link to the

SVG
original of this drawing:
tts-etaino.svg

The basic observation here is that the
6-Level Teletypesetter code is clearly based on the
5-Level Teletype code,
which in turn is based on Murray’s 5-Unit code.
The reason for the layout of Murray’s code was the minimization of
wear on tape punches by following a regular pattern designed to
use fewer punches for the most commonly used letters.
The placement of the numbers in Murray’s arrangement followed
from the layout of the QWERTY keyboard.
The output (punch) and input (keyboard) technologies led to the code
layout.

In looking at the TTS code in greater detail,
several lesser observations may be in order.

First, the TTS code is almost, but not quite,
backward compatible with the TTY code.
If you strip off channel 0, you do get the letters of
the 5-Level TTY code,
and reasonable equivalents for the “Return,” “Elevate,” etc.
control codes.
However, because the TTS code puts lowercase letters in those positions
and uses a shift/unshift to get to uppercase,
the semantics of the letters are not quite the same.
More importantly, the shifted versions of the letters differ.
If you strip off channel ‘0’,
a TTS shifted ‘e’ becomes not TTS ‘E’ but TTY ‘3’.

Second, the “upper half” of the code (positions
31-64)
repeats the Murray pattern.
This is seen because if this pattern is used then all but one
of the TTS numbers fall in exactly the same locations that they
would in Murray’s pattern.
(The exception is ‘1’, which isn’t quite in the right place.)

This allocation of the numbers in TTS is further
interesting
because the Linotype is not QWERTY, it’s ETAOIN.
The Teletypesetter Perforator, however, is QWERTY.

There is, however, one oddity in the TTS layout when
compared
with the TTY layout.
The position of BELL in TTS isn’t quite where one would expect
if the upper half of TTS replicated TTY as far as possible.
Instead, BELL is exactly where ITA-2 has “Audible Signal.”
I’m not sure what to make of this.

11. ASCII

[TO DO]
The basic point will be that ASCII, too, reflected its technologies.
It is not based on any of the previous codes discussed
(Baudôt’s, ITA-1, Murray, Teletype, ITA-2, TTS).
Instead, it is based on binary counting.
If you take an ASCII ‘A’ (0x41) and add 5 to it,
you get 0x46, which is in fact ASCII ‘F’ – the letter five up from ‘A’.
If you try to treat TTY ‘A’ as if it were a binary number
(0b11000, or 0x18) and add 5 to it you get 0x0D = 0b11101,
which is TTY ‘Q’.

None of the earlier codes discussed were binary
because they were
not designed for computation.
They were designed to encode given certain input and output equipment.
By the time ASCII came around, though,
there were computers upon and it made sense to treat character codes
as binary numbers.

12. Summary

So this has been a great deal of verbiage on tiny
little details
of codes nobody uses any more and machines which in some cases
no longer exist.
Here’s a sort of minimal summary (still with too many words):

Baudôt:

Baudôt’s code is a 5-unit code with units which,
when transmitted over a telegraph line, are intended to be of equal
duration.
Baudôt seems to have introduced these principles,
which therefore deserve to be associated with his name.
The transmission system used was synchronous, not start-stop.
The combinations of his code are not binary numbers.
Its layout was designed to be easy to learn given a particular keyboard,

the key-ordering of which differed from the transmission-ordering of the
code.
It was not initially intended to be punched to tape at all,
although a tape was devised for it.
The system was a printing telegraph
which printed along a (non-punched) tape;
it was not a page teleprinter.

In summary, the Baudôt code layout was determined by
the need to teach
the Baudôt 5-key keyboard to human telegraph operators.

As an aside, while Baudôt’s code is not binary
numbering,
he effectively invented a binary shift register for decoding and
printing it.

Baudôt’s code was formalized into ITA-1 in 1932.
ITA-1 was deleted in 1973.

Murray:

Murray’s code was also 5-unit and employed units of
equal duration.
It was designed to be used with synchronous transmission equipment,
not start-stop equipment.
It punched to a tape (although the punching was linear along the tape).
It was also intended to drive page teleprinters.
The alphabetic layout of Murray’s code was designed
to minimize the number of punches
used for common letters (in an order beginning “ETAINO…”),
thus minimizing the wear on the (single) punch.
The numeric layout of Murray’s code was determined by the
existing layout of the QWERTY keyboard once the letters had been
assigned
code values.
The code combinations of Murray’s code are not binary numbers.
Murray’s code layout has nothing at all to do with Baudôt’s,
and properly should not be called “Baudôt,” even though Murray himself
begain the confusing practice of doing this.

In summary, Murray’s code was determined by letter
frequency and
punch mechanics.

Teletype:

The Teletype code is based directly on Murray’s.
It is punched to tape, in a pattern going across the tape.
It may be useful therefore to call this “5-Level” (the conventional
usage)
to distinguish it from Murray’s 5-unit code punched lenghtwise on the
tape.
The Teletype code may or may not have been used first with synchronous
equipment,
but certainly achieved prominance used with the Krum start-stop
equipment.
It was used both for page teleprinting and for printing linearly on tape

(though this latter use seems to have been primarily to assist in
reading
the tape).

Even though Murray called his code “Baudôt,”
and even though the Teletype Corp. called their Murray-derived code
“Baudot” upon occasion,
the Teletype code layout has nothing at all to do with the layout
of Baudôt.
The only similarity is that both are 5-unit codes with equal-length
units
when transmitted.

The Teletype code was given an international
formalization
in 1932 as ITA-2, and continues today as ITU-T Recommendation S.1.
The Teletype code is almost, but not quite, a proper administrative
variation of ITA-2.

The layout of TTY/ITA-2, like the Murray code upon
which they are based,
is determined by (English) letter frequency and the mechanics of
Murray’s (not Teletype’s) punches
(and by the QWERTY keyboard).
The code combinations are not binary numbers.

Teletypesetter:

The Teletypesetter code is a direct extension of the
Teletype code.
It is only partially backward-compatible.

ASCII:

Unlike all of the codes previously considered,
the code combinations of ASCII are, in fact, binary numbers.
It is possible to do limited binary arithmetic on them and come up with
meaningful results.

Whereas the previous codes were determined by user
considerations
(an unusual keyboard for Baudôt),
input device considerations (the QWERTY keyboard for Murray/TTY
numerics),
or output device considerations (the punch for Murray/TTY),
ASCII was determined by the existance of and the ability to use
computing machinery on character encodings.

The codes of Baudôt and Murray,
and their derivatives with Krum, Morey, and others
counted for a great deal from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries;
most of the world’s telecommunications and much of its newspaper
printing
used them.
Even so, while you can count on them,
you can’t count with them.

13. Bibliography

13.1. Sources Consulted

The Associated
Press.
The AP Style Book for Teletypesetter Circuits.
NY: The Associated Press, 1951.

This is available online on

Dave and Beth Seat’s
Hot Metal Services website,
www.hotmetalservices.com
(in the

Downloadable
Documents section).

bsittler.
[no title; “baudot.txt].

http://xent.com/~bsittler/baudot.txt.

This brief note argues that if you separate out the vowels and
consonants
into two separate sequences that Baudôt’s code is a Gray code.

Beauchamp, Ken.
History of Telegraphy.
London: INstitution of Electrical Engineers

The bulk of Beauchamp’s book is concerned with manual telegraphy.
Machine-based telegraphy (Baudôt, Murray, Teletype, etc.) receives
treatment only in an Epilogue.
It should certainly not be judged on the basis of this epilogue,
but nevertheless there are errors in it which should be noted.

On p. 397 he ascribes the invention and the naming of the Teletype to
AT&T in 1924.
This is not true; the Teletype was developed by the Morkrum company
prior to 1924, and named by them.
AT&T merely purchased their successor company well after 1924.

On p. 395, he presents a chart of the French and English versions of the

Baudôt code.
He attributes this chart to
“Fleming. ‘Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy,’ 1909.”
However, the first edition of
The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy and Telephony
(London: Longmans, Green, and Co.)
was April, 1906.
It was revised with additions in November, 1908.
The second edition appeared in September, 1910.
A third edition appeared in December, 1916.
A fourth edition appeared in May, 1919.
The first, second, and fourth editions are presently (April 2010)
available online via Google Books.
The closest date of an actual edition of Fleming to the one cited by
Beauchamp is 1910.
This chart does not appear in the 1910 edition.

On page 197,
he presents a chart of “The International Alphabet No. 1.”
He attributes this chart to
“Fleming. ‘Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy,’ 1909.”
This cannot be correct for two reasons.
First, ITA-1 did not exist at this time
(it was first adopted at the 1932 ITU Conference in Madrid).
Second, this chart does not appear in Fleming (1910).

On p. 397,
he attributes the initiation of development of standards for
“a much wider range of operations [e.g., teleprinters]”
to “the Internationl Consultative Committee for Telegraph Communications

(CCITT), which at its inaugural meeting in Berlin in 1926 commissioned a
study
of the standardisation of the five-unit codes…”
This should of course be the CCIT (its successor, the CCITT, dates from
1956).

CCITT: See ITU-T, below.

Earle, Ralph H.
The Morkrum System of Printing Telegraphy.
B.S.E.E. Thesis,
Armour Institute of Technology (Chicago),
May 31, 1917.

The Morkrum
systems described here predate the invention of start-stop signaling by
Krum
in 1919.
This thesis has been digitized and is available online
at

The Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/morkrumsystemofp00earl

Fairchild Graphic
Equipment.
More Type in Less Time.
Plainview, Long Island: Fairchild Graphic Equipment,
Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. [no date, early 1960s]

 

I have digitized this document.
For the moment, a link to it may be found at:

http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/temp-pdfs.html

 

Fairchild Graphic Equipment.
New High-Speed Transmission Equipment.
Plainview, NY: Fairchild Graphic Equipment Division of
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.,
[no date; 1960s]

Fairchild Graphic Equipment.

Fairchild TTS Selective Allotter.
Plainview, NY: Fairchild Graphic Equipment Division of
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp.,
[no date; 1960s]

 

Herbert, T. E.
Telegraphy.
4th Edition.
London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1920.

Online via Google Books.
Baudôt system 455-479 (PDF 480-506).

Hobbs, Alan G.
[G8GOJ].
“Five-Unit Codes.”
on
NADCOMM Papers and Writing

http://www.nadcomm.com/fiveunit/fiveunits.htm.

This gives charts of Baudôt (in French and English version),
an ITA-1 (the same chart as in Beauchamp 2001),
Murray,
ITA-2, and Teletypewriter.
No sources are specified.

The following documents are either
(a) modern ITU websites devoted to the history of the ITU,
its committees and sectors,
and its Conferences,
or (b)
historical ITU documents produced at those conferences.
I’ve arranged conference-related documents not
alphabetically but by conference date.

ITU.
“Welcome to History of ITU Portal”,

“Welcome to
History of ITU Portal”,
http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/default.aspx.
Accessed 2010-04-17.

ITU.
“About ITU Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conferences
and the Telegraph and Telephone Regulations.”
A web pages on the

ITU website,

History of
ITU Portal,

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/aboutAC.aspx.

ITU-T.
“Fifty Years of Excellence in Telecommunication/ICT Standards,”
a web pages with a brief historical overview published by the ITU-T.

http//www.itu.int/ITU-T/50/history.html

ITU-T.
CCITT [and] ITU-T 1956-12006: 50 Years of Excellence.
Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 2006.

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/50/docs/ITU-T_50.pdf

The International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee
(C.C.I.T.T.) of the
International Telecommunications Union.
Green Book.
Volume I.
(CCITT Fifth Plenary Assembly,
Geneva, 4-15 December 1972).
Geneva: The International Telecommunications Union, 1973.

 

The Minutes of the
First Plenary Meeting
(Monday, 4 December 1971)
record the
“Report by Study Group 1”
in which, inter alia,
the Study Group recommended that ITA-1
be deleted.

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (St. Petersburg, 1875).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1875StPetersburg.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.

Convention télégraphique internationale
de Saint-Pétersbourg et Règlement et tarifs y annexés (1875).
Berne: par le Bureau international des administrations télégraphique
by Imprimerie Rieder & Simmen, 1876.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1875StPetersburg.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000044002PDFF.pdf

Throughout the entire period of the
development
of the teleprinter and Teletype,
this was the basic international convention on telegraphy.
It remained in force, with Administrative changes only,
until 1932 (Madrid).

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Lisbon, 1908).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1908Lisbon.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-22.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
Convention télégraphique internationale de Saint-Pétersbourg
et Règlement et tarifs y annexés,
Revision de Lisbonne, 1908.
[Extraits [by the ITU Archives]
de la publication:

Documents de la Conférence télégraphique
internationale de Lisbonne.
Berne: Bureau international de l’Union télégraphique, 1909.

The first definition of an alphabet for the Baudôt instrument
(which later evolved into ITA-1) appeared here.

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1925).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1925Paris.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

 

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
International Telegraph Convention of St. Petersburg and
Service Regulations Annexed,
Revision of Paris (1925).
London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1926.
[This is a version with an English translation prepared by
the General Post Office, London.
The official document is in French.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1925P

aris.aspx,
or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000134004PDFE.pdf

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Brussels, 1928).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1928Brussels.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
International Telegraph Convention.
Modification of the Service Regulations,
Adopted by the International Conference of the
Telegraph Union Held at Brussels in September 1928.
London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1929.
[This is a version with an English translation prepared by
the General Post Office, London.
The official document is in French.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1928Brussels.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000174006PDFE.pdf

ITU.
“Protocole portant additions et modifications au Réglement de service
international. (Bruxelles, 1928)”
Via
“International Telegraph Conference (Brussels, 1928).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1928Brussels.aspx

or direclty at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000174004PDFE.pd

This Protocol (less the interesting notes about the
Comité d’étude pour le langage)
is translated as a part of

the English version of the modifications to the Telegraph Regulatiosn,
International Telegraph Convention.
Modification of the Service Regulations,
Adopted by the International Conference of the
Telegraph Union Held at Brussels in September 1928.

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932).”
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1932Madrid.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
International Telecommunication Convention
Madrid 1932.
London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1933.
[This is a version with an English translation prepared by
the General Post Office, London.
The official document is in French.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1932Madrid.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000184004PDFE.pdf

This Convention is an organizational and treaty document.
The Conference also issued updated
Telegraph Regulations
(see below).

ITU.
Telegraph Regulations
Annexed to the
International Telecommunication Convention –
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations –
Madrid 1932
.
London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1933.
[This is a version with an English translation prepared by
the General Post Office, London.
The official document is in French.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1932Madrid.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000184508PDFE.pdf

See Article 35 (English Page 34) for
the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 1.
See Article 35 (English Page 36) for
the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2.

ITU.
Règlement télégraphique annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications –
protocol finale audit règlement –
Madrid, 1932.
Berne: Bureau Internationale de L’Union Télégraphique, 1933.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1932Madrid.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000184503PDFE.pdf

Alphabet télégraphique international nº 1
is defined (for the first time, I believe)
in Article 35 of this document
(page 33).
Alphabet télégraphique international nº 2
is defined (for the first time, I believe)
in Article 35 of this document
(page 35).

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Cairo, 1938).
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1938Cairo.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
Telegraph Regulations
(Revision of Cairo, 1938)
Annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention
(Madrid, 1932):
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.
[This is a version with an English translation prepared by
the General Post Office, London.
The official document is in French.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1938Cairo.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000154512PDFE.pdf

ITU.
Règlement télégraphique
(revision du Caire, 1938)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Madrid, 1932)
protocol finale audit règlement.
Berne: Bureau de l’Union Internationale des Télécommunications, 1938.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1938Cairo.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000154513PDFE.pdf

ITU.
“International Telecommunications Conference (Atlantic City, 1947).
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1947AtlanticCity.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

This was a Plenipotentiary Conference.
It issued only a Convention,
not Regulations or technical documents.

ITU.
International Telecommunications Convention,
Atlantic City, 1947;
Final Protocol to the Convention,
Additional Protocols to the Convention,
Resolutions, Recommendations and Opinion.
Berne: Bureau of the International Telecommunications Union, 1947.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryeconferences/Pages/1947AtlanticCity.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000194006PDFE.pdf

This is an organizational treaty,
not set of Regulations or a technical standard.

ITU.
“International Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1949).
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1949Paris.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
Telegraph Regulations
(Paris Revision, 1949)
Annexed to the
International Telecommunication Convention
(Atlantic City, 1947):
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.
Geneva: General Secretariat of the International Telecommunications
Union, 1949.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1949Paris.aspx,

or directly at:

telegraph-regulations–1949-paris-english–S02010000164012PDFE.pdf

ITU.
Règlement télégraphique
(revision du Paris, 1949)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Atlantic City, 1947);
protocol finale audit reglement [sic, not règlement].
Geneve: Secrétariat Général de l’Union Internationale des
Télécommunications, 1949.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1949Paris.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S02010000164013PDFF.pdf

ITU.
“Plenipotentiary Conference (Buenos Aires, 1952).”
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryconferences/Pages/1952BuenosAires.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

This was a Plenipotentiary Conference.
It issued only a Convention,
not Regulations or technical documents.

ITU.
International Telecommunications Convention,
Buenos Aires, 1952;
Final Protocol to the Convention,
Additional Protocols to the Convention,
Resolutions, Recommendations and Opinion.
Geneva: General Secretariat of the International Telecommunications
Union,
1953.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Plenipotentiary Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/plenipotentiaryeconferences/Pages/1952buenosAires.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/-S020100001A4002PDFE.pdf

This is an organizational treaty,
not set of Regulations or a technical standard.

ITU.
“Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1958).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1958Geneva.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
Telegraph Regulations
(Geneva Revision, 1958)
Annexed to the
International Telecommunication Convention
(Buenos Aires, 1952);
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.
Geneva: General Secretariat of the International Telecommunications
Union, 1949.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1949Paris.aspx,

or directly at:

telegraph-regulations–1949-paris-english–S02010000164012PDFE.pdf

ITU.
Règlement télégraphique
(revision du Gèneve, 1958)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Buenos Aires, 1952)
protocol finale audit règlement.
Geneve: par l’Union Internationale des Télécommunications, 1959.
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1958Geneva.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S020100001B4004PDFF.pdf

ITU.
“World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva,
1958).”
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1973Geneva.aspx.

Accessed 2010-04-17.

Web pages devoted to this conference,
with PDF versions of documents from the conference.

ITU.
Final Acts
of the World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference
(Geneva, 1973).
[No publication information in the ITU’s PDF, but presumably
Geneva: ITU, circa 1973.]
Digital version available from the ITU at the
Administrative Conferences section,
ITU History Portal,
ITU website.

http://www.itu.int/en/history/administrativeconferences/Pages/1973Geneva.aspx,

or directly at:

http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/oth/02/01/S020100001E4002PDFE.pdf

The following documents are current
ITU (ITU-T) Recommendations
at the time of writing.

ITU-T.
Operational Provisions for the International Public Telegram Service.

Recommendation F.1 in the F Series of ITU-T Recommendations,
“Non-Telephone Telecommunications Services”
Accessed 2010-04-17.

ITU-T.
International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2.
Recommendation S.1 in the S Series of ITU-T Recommendations
(previously “CCITT Recommendations”),
“Telegraph Services Terminal Equipment”,

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/index.asp?ser=5

Version approved March 1993 (Helsinki), published 1994.
Accessed 2010-04-17.

ITU-T.
Conversion Between International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2
and international Alphabet No. 5.
Geneva: ITU, 1980.
Recommendation S.18 in the S Series of ITU-T Recommendations,
“Telegraph Services Terminal Equipment”,

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/index.asp?ser=5

Accessed 2010-04-17.

We return now to non-ITU bibliography:

Jennings, Tom.
“An Annotated History of Some Character Codes, or,
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange.”

http://wps.com/projects/codes/index.html

This is especially good on details of
early systems.

Lodge, John E.
“Setting the Type by Wire!”
in
Popular Science Monthly.
Vol. 114, No. 3 (March, 1929): 23-24.

This article is viewable online via Google Books.
(It is in copyright, however, and I cannot reproduce it here.)
It includes some of the same photographs as

Snyder,

with an additional photograph which,
quite interestingly,
shows reporters at a sporting event equipped with telegraph
sounders and keys.

Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
The Big Scheme of Simple Operation.
Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940.

This booklet was published in various forms.
The version from which the illustrations here were scanned was a
separate
publication.
It was also incorporated into
Linotype Machine Principles.
I did the scans here from my own copy,
but this booklet (and also Linotype Machine Principles)
are available online at

www.linotype.org

Mergenthaler

Linotype Company.
Elektron: The Ultimate in Automation.
Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company,
[undated, but the Elektron first shipped 1962-11-23].

I have digitized this.
It isn’t online yet, but when it does go online it will be at:

http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/linecasters/literature/linotype/elektron/index.html

Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
Linasec Justape Operating Instructions.
Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company,
[undated, early 1970s].

I believe that this was a Linotype rebranding of the Compugraphic
Justape.
It uses a Teletype BRPE High-Speed Punch.

Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
Linotype Machine Principles.
Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940.

I did the scans here from my own copy,
but this book is available online at

www.linotype.org

Mergenthaler
Linotype Company.
Useful Matrix Information.
Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1937.

I did the scans here from my own copy,
but this book is available online at

www.linotype.org

Murray, Donald.
“The Strange Story of Printing-Telegraphs.”
in
Everybody’s Magazine.
Vol. 7, No. 1 (July, 1902): 72-81.

Online via Google Books.
This is an entertaining account which emphasizes the diversity of
invention at the time
(and points out that America seems the peculiar home of
printing telegraph crank inventors).

Murray, Donald.
“Setting Type by Telegraph.”
in
Journal of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 34 (1905): 555-608 (PDF 590-653).

Online via Google Books.
This paper is notable for its extensive discussion of
“Telegraph Signalling Alphabets”
from Morse to Murray
(the comparison of Baudôt and Murray is p. 566).
It illustrates Murray’s equipment.
It also makes reference to experiments in using Murray
apparatus to control a Linotype
(p. 593, PDF 638).

Murray, Donald.
“Practical Aspects of Printing Telegraphs.”
in
Proceedings of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 47 (1910): 450-529.

Online via Google Books.

Pendry, H. W.
The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System.
First Edition.
London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1913.
147pp.

Pendry, H. W.

The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System.
Second Edition.
London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1919.
184pp.

Savard, John.
“A Cryptographic Compendium.”

http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/intro.htm

(1998-2003)
and especially

Chapter 3:
Telecipher Devices [Machines]:
http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/tele03.htm

This paper quite clearly notes that ITA-1 is not Morse.
It also gives a chart for the Teletypesetter code that I have not seen
elsewhere.

Smith,
Gil.
“Teletypewriter Communication Codes.”
2001.
The main site for this is probably Gil Smith’s own

www.baudot.net:

http://www.baudot.net/docs/smith-teletype-codes.pdf.

It is mirrored elsewhere.

Slayton, Ransom D.
“History of Telegraphy from the Teletype Museum.”
(1983).

This is a record of the placard information at the Teletype
Corporation’s
museum.
It is available online;
see for example

Gil Smith’s Baudot.net
Note that Pearne’s name is “Frank Pearne,” not “Prank Pearne” as a typo
in the digital version has it.

Snyder, Leroy E.
“The Teletypesetter.”
in
The Penrose Annual
[date not yet known, circa 1929].
Collected in
James Moran, ed.
Printing in the Twentieth Century:
A Penrose Anthology.
London: Northwood Publications, Ltd.
and
NY: Hastings House, 1974.

This article appeared originally in
The Penrose Annual
sometime soon after the initial public demonstration of the
Teletypesetter
in 1928.

Teletype Corp.
Description:
Type Bar Tape Printer Model 14.
Bulletin No. 126, Issue 2. December, 1931.
(Chicago: Teletype Corp., 1931).

This shows a Teletype code clearly derived from Murray (ETAINO…),
but without Carriage Return or Linefeed characters.
It is online at

www.hertzmail.com

Teletype Corp.
Description:
TypeBar Page Printer Model 15.
Bulletin No. 141 [presumably Issue 1] February, 1931.
(Chicago: Teletype Corp., 1931).

This shows a Teletype code clearly derived from Murray (ETAINO…),
with Carriage Return or Linefeed characters.
It is online at

www.bitsavers.org

Teletype Corp.
Description:
TypeBar Page Printer Model 20.
Bulletin No. 161, Issue 1, March, 1940.
(Chicago: Teletype Corp., 1940).

The Model 20 is the 6-level derivative of the Model 15.
The code diagram in this Bulletin lists the TTS code in the order
“1,2,3,4,5,0”.
It is online at

www.bitsavers.org

Teletypesetter
Corporation.
Teletypesetter Perforator Operator’s Training Reference Manual.
Chicago, IL: Teletypesetter Corp., 1953.

 

Vansize, William B.
“A New Page-Printing Telegraph.”
in
Transactions of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers.
Vol. 18
(1901, published 1902): 7-43.

Online via Google Books.
Paper presented January 25, 1901.
Discusses the Murray system.

Winter, Dik.
“100+ Codes:
A Collection of Papertape, Punched Card,
Magnetic Tape and Other Codes.”
Amsterdam, Netherlands: Computer Museum,
University of Amsterdam, 1997-2010.

http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/DWcodes.html

This is just what it says it is,
a compendium of many, many codes.

13.2. Sources Not Yet Consulted

Booth, A. C.
The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System.
1907.

Booth, A. C.
“Institution of Post Office Electrical Engineers:
The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System.”
[title as cited from Google Books]
1909.

Booth, A. C.
“Post Office Engineering Department:
The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System.”
[title as cited from Google Books]
1909.

ITU.
Instructions for the Operation
of the International Public Telegram Service [1974 Edition];
Instructions Published In Accordance with the Decisions of the
World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1973).

Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1974.

ITU.
Instructions for the Operation
of the International Public Telegram Service [1977 Edition];
Instructions Published In Accordance with the Decisions of the
World Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1973).

Geneva: International Telecommunications Union, 1977.

14. Notes

Note 2-1.
The Baudôt system was the subject of

a
book
by H[enry] [Walter] Pendry,
The Baudôt Printing Telegraph System

(London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd.,
1913 and

1919).

This source is not yet online,
but I am fortunate to have a copy of it.
It was also the subject of books and papers by
A. C. Booth,
who is cited by Pendry as having contributed to the development of
the system in England.
I do not yet have access to these sources.
The best online source I know of is

the
1920 (4th) edition of
Herbert, T. E.
Telegraphy.
pp. 455-479 (online via Google Books; PDF 480-506).

Note 3-1.
See

“About
ITU Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conferences
and the Telegraph and Telephone Regulations”

and

CCITT
[and] ITU-T 1956-12006: 50 Years of Excellence.”

See also

“International
Telegraph Conference (St. Petersburg, 1875)”,
a summary of the (Plenipotentiary)
International Telegraph Conference (St. Petersburg, 1875).
and

“International
Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932)”,
a summary of the (Plenipotentiary)
International Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932).

See also

Convention
télégraphique internationale
de Saint-Pétersbourg et Règlement et tarifs y annexés (1875).

and

Telegraph
Regulations
Annexed to the
International Telecommunication Convention –
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations –
Madrid 1932
.

Note 3-2.
See
“Fifty
Years of Excellence in Telecommunication/ICT Standards.”.

Note 3-3.
See

“International
Telegraph Conference (Lisbon, 1908)”,
a summary of the (Administrative)
International Telegraph Conference (Lisbon, 1908).
and the Telegraph Regulations contained in

Convention
télégraphique internationale de Saint-Pétersbourg et Règlement et
tarifs y annexés, Revision de Lisbonne, 1908.

Note 3-4.
See
“International
Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1925)”,
a summary of the (Administrative)
International Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1925).

Note 3-5.
International Telegraph Convention of St. Petersburg
and Service Regulations Annexed, Revision of Paris (1925),
Chapter X,
“Transmission of Telegrams,”
Article 32, Section D.
This is on p. 46 of the

English
version

Note 3-6.
There is a summary of the meetings of the
Committee for the Study of Code Language
(Comité d’étude pour le langage)
in

“Protocole portant additions et modifications au Réglement de service
international. (Bruxelles, 1928)”
This Protocol (less the interesting notes about the
Comité d’étude pour le langage)
is translated as a part of

the English version of the modifications to the Telegraph Regulatiosn,
International Telegraph Convention.
Modification of the Service Regulations,
Adopted by the International Conference of the
Telegraph Union Held at Brussels in September 1928.

Note 3-7.
See
“International
Telegraph Conference (Brussels, 1928)”,
a summary of the (Administrative)
International Telegraph Conference (Brussels, 1928).

Note 3-8.
See
“International
Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932)”,
a summary of the (Plenipotentiary)
International Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932).

Note 3-9.
See

Règlement
télégraphique
(revision du Caire, 1938)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Madrid, 1932)
protocol finale audit règlement.

Note 3-10.
See

Telegraph
Regulations
(Revision of Cairo, 1938)
Annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention
(Madrid, 1932):
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.

Note 3-11.
See

“International
Telecommunications Conference (Atlantic City, 1947)”,
a summary of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU (Atlantic City,
1947).

Note 3-12.
See

“International
Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1949)”,
a summary of the (Administrative)
International Telegraph Conference (Paris, 1949).
See also

Telegraph
Regulations
(Revision of Paris, 1949)
Annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention
(Madrid, 1932);
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.

and

Règlement
télégraphique
(revision du Paris, 1949)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Atlantic City, 1947);
protocol finale audit reglement [sic, not règlement].

Note 3-13.
See

“Plenipotentiary
Conference (Buenos Aires, 1952)”,
a summary of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU
(Buenos Aires, 1952).

Note 3-14.
See

“Administrative

Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1958)”,
a summary of the Conference.
See also

Telegraph
Regulations
(Revision of Geneva, 1958)
Annexed to the International Telecommunication Convention
(Buenos Aires, 1952);
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations.
and

Règlement
télégraphique
(revision du Gèneve, 1958)
annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications
(Buenos Aires, 1952);
protocol finale audit reglement [sic, not règlement].

Note 3-15.
See

“World

Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference (Geneva, 1973),
a summary of the Conference.

Note 7-1.
See
“International
Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932)”,
a summary of the (Plenipotentiary)
International Telegraph Conference (Madrid, 1932).
See also

Telegraph
Regulations
Annexed to the
International Telecommunication Convention –
Final Protocol to the Telegraph Regulations –
Madrid 1932
.
(This is the unofficial version in English prepared by the
General Post Office, London.)
and

Règlement
télégraphique annexé à la
convention internationale des télécommunications –
protocol finale audit règlement –
Madrid, 1932.

(This is the official version in French.)

Note 9-01.
There are several good (if altogether too brief) early histories
of what became the Teletype Corp.
The websites at

RTTY.COM
and

Gil Smith’s Baudot.net
are two good starting places
(there are others as well).
Of these various histories,
one that mentions specifically an early interest by Frank Pearne in
the Linotype is
Ransom D. Slayton’s

“History
of Telegraphy from the Teletype Museum”,
in paragraph 18.

Note 9-02.
There is vanishingly little recorded about the early history of the
Teletypesetter.
Two contemporary newspaper accounts are

Snyder’s

“The Teletypesetter” in The Penrose Annual

and

Lodge’s
“Setting the Type by Wire!”
in Popular Science Monthly.

Note 9-03.
A historical timeline of the Associated Press published by AP online
(

http://www.ap.org/pages/about/history/history_third.html)
notes:
“1951.
The AP launches the first Teletypesetter circuit operated by a news
service.
Copy is edited at the AP bureau and punched on paper tape
in lines justified for the Teletypesetting machines.
Stories are sent at a speed of 53 words per minute –
later raised to 66 wpm-and the type is set automatically
at the newspaper plant.”
and
“1962. AP links its Teletypesetter news wires together
for the first time so that every TTS member newspaper
in the United States simultaneously receives reports of
John Glenn’s historic orbital flight around the earth.”

Note 9-04.
See also

The
AP Style Book for Teletypesetter Circuits. (1951).

Note 9-5.
See

More
Type In Less Time through Automatic Typecasting:
“… the Teletypesetter – developed and manufactured since 1932
by the designers of world famous Teletype communications apparatus
until January 1958,
when Fairchild Graphic Equipment,
a Division of Fairchild Camera & Instrument Corp.,
assumed manufature, development, sales and service
of Teletypesetter equipment.”

Note 9-6.
[TO DO: Linomatic Tape System references]

Note 9-7.
[TO DO: Star Parts references]

Note 9-8.
[TO DO: Shaffstall references]

Note 9-9.
[TO DO: Justape references]

Note 9-10.
[TO DO: Linoquick references]

15. Document Revision History

Revision 3, 2010-04-27. Typographical correction.

Revision 2, 2010-04-25. Typographical corrections.

Revision 1, 2010-04-23. Initial release.