Westinghouse W1642 terminal... any info?

[schwepes at moog.netaxs.com]

Could this thing be doing a modification of the old teletype codes?
Sone if the really easier machines used modifications on the Baudaut set.
bs


On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, Mr Ian Primus wrote:

> I posted this over at comp.terminals, but I figured I'd send it out to this list too...
>
> I've just accquired a Westinghouse W1642 terminal, and I'm looking for
> any kind of documentation I can find on it. It's clearly somewhat of a
> single purpose terminal, originally used at airlines. The keyboard is
> weird, and is missing many "useful" characters, like brackets,
> slashes, pipe and comma. Instead, it has various weird symbols,
> command keys, and such. It has no shift key, and only displays upper
> case. It also appears to support multiple sessions, with keys to
> switch between them, and display a split screen mode. Typing in any of
> the sessions will echo to the screen, even with nothing connected.
>
> On the back are four female DB25 connectors - LINE/PRINT, PRINT1,
> PRINT2 and AUX. I've tried connecting it up to a computer and sending
> text to it, at 9600 baud. Connecting an RS232 cable to AUX causes the
> CTRL-DOWN indicator at the bottom of the screen to go away, but only
> for the full screen session. Sending random junk to the terminal
> through the serial port occasionally is able to bring up a message at
> the top, something about an invalid printer, but no other garbage
> displays. So far, I've only tried it at 9600 baud, I didn't have time
> last night to try other speeds.
>
> Inside the terminal seems rather conventional, I haven't dismantled it
> completely, but near each port is a 75154 (quad line receiver), and it
> appears that farther back on the board are other comms chips
> (socketed). I was expecting to see 1488/89 pairs, but haven't seen
> those in there yet. Two of the ports are on a daughter board, the
> other two are on the main board. The boards are partially hidden by
> the monitor chassis, and I've not pulled them out to look yet. There
> are some dip switches on the main board though.
>
> So.. basically, I know that this isn't going to be a great computer
> terminal, with it's lack of important command keys, (no ESC either!).
> That's too bad, since it's very well built, has a very nice keyboard,
> and a very sharp, clear screen. But, I would like to be able to do
> something with it, send text to it, use it as a console command
> monitor, something. Does anyone have any kind of documentation or
> information on this beastie?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Ian
>