TV Typewriter

The TV Typewriter was a video terminal that could display 2 pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television. The Don Lancaster design appeared on the cover of "Radio-Electronics" magazine in September 1973.cite journal | last = Lancaster | first = Don | title = TV Typewriter | journal =Radio Electronics | volume = 44 | issue = 9 | pages = pp. 43–52 | publisher = Gernsback Publications | location = New York | date = September 1973] The magazine included a 6 page description of the design but readers could send off for a 16 page package of construction details. "Radio-Electronics" sold thousands of copies for $2.00 each. The TV Typewriter is considered a milestone in the home computer revolution along with the Mark-8 and Altair 8800 computers.cite book | last =Freiberger | first =Paul | coauthors = Michael Swaine | title = Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer | publisher =McGraw-Hill | date =2000 | location =New York | pages = pp. 35-36 | isbn =0-07-135892-7 "A giant step toward the realization of the personal-computer dream happened in 1973, when Radio Electronics published an article by Don Lancaster that described a 'TV Typewriter'."] cite book | last = Ceruzzi | first = Paul E. | title = A History of Modern Computing | publisher = MIT Press | date = 2003 | location = Cambridge, MA | pages = p. 226 | isbn = 0-262-53203-4"One influential project was the TV-Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster and published in "Radio-Electronics" in September 1973."]

TVT I

Don Lancaster was an engineer at Goodyear Aerospace designing a high resolution video display for the military. Don was also a prolific author of hobbyist projects for "Popular Electronics" and "Radio-Electronics" magazines. The video project gave Don the inspiration for his most influential project, a low cost video terminal known as the TV Typewriter. The design used TTL digital logic and shift register memory. (Microprocessors and RAM were new and very expensive.) With professional terminals costing over $1000 this $120 kit looked like a bargain. Southwest Technical Products sold the set of bare circuit boards for $27 and the eight major integrated circuits for $49.50. The hobbyist had to acquire the rest of the components on their own.

In the November issue, the editors apologized for the delays in shipping the TV Typewriter booklets to the thousands of readers that ordered them. They also listed electronics parts sources for the difficult to find components. Don Lancaster also answered a series of reader questions and gave ideas for additional functions and uses for the TV Typewriter.cite journal | last = Editors | title = TV Typewriter Notes and Comments | journal =Radio Electronics | volume = 44 | issue = 11 | pages = pp. 16, 22 | publisher = Gernsback Publications | location = New York | date = November 1973] The December issue had a page of correction for the TV Typewriter booklet.cite journal | last = Lancaster | first = Don | title = TV Typewriter Corrections | journal =Radio Electronics | volume = 44 | issue = 12 | pages = pp. 16, 22 | publisher = Gernsback Publications | location = New York | date = December 1973] Both of the notices were included in later printings of the booklet.

The compact design and complex circuitry made the TV Typewriter a challenging project for hobbyist. But many finished the project and some even connected to their Intel 8008 based computers. The April 1975 issue of the Micro-8 newsletter has 6 pages of user modifications and interface designs to connect the TV Typewriter to Mark-8 or SCELBI computers.cite journal | last =Singer | first =Hal (Editor). | title = Modifications for the TVT-1 | journal = Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter | publisher = Cabrillo Computer Center | volume =1 | issue =6 | pages = pp. 27–33| location = Lompoc, CA | date = April 15, 1975] The original TV Typewriter design did not include a serial interface, modem connection, or offline data storage on cassette tape. Don Lancaster wrote about these in the September 1975 issue of "BYTE" magazine and his TV Typewriter Cookbook. A serial interface board designed by Roger Smith was published in January 1975 issue of "Radio Electronics".cite journal | last = Smith | first = Roger | date = February 1975 | title = UART and Modem for TV Typewriter | journal = Radio-Electronics | volume = 46 | issue = 2 | pages = pp. 51–53 | publisher = Gernsback Publications]

Keyboards

"Popular Electronics" (April 1974) featured as complete keyboard kit designed by Don Lancaster and available from Southwest Technical Products for $39.50. cite journal | last = Lancaster | first = Don | date = April 1974 | title = ASCII Keyboard and Encoder | journal = Popular Electronics | volume = 5 | issue = 2 | pages = pp. 27–31 | publisher = Ziff Davis] The first version used simple RTL ICs to decode the key matrix. The design was soon improved to use a full featured keyboard encoder IC.

Radio-Electronics

"Popular Electronics" and "Radio-Electronics" were the largest hobbyist electronics magazines in the 1960's and 1970s. Each month the magazines had information of the latest technological developments and often provided detailed plans so the hobbyist could build equipment utilizing these developments.cite book | last = Freiberger | first = Paul | coauthors = Michael Swaine | title = Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer | publisher = McGraw-Hill | location =New York | date = 2000 | pages = p. 220 | isbn =0-07-135892-7 "Computer enthusiasts relied on the hobbyist electronics magazines, such as "Popular Electronics" and "Radio Electronics", to stay up on the latest technological developments."]

Both of these magazines could trace their origin to "Radio Amateur News", a magazine started by Hugo Gernsback in 1919. Gernsback lost "Radio News" in a 1929 bankruptcy and immediately started "Radio Craft" to compete with his old magazine. By the 1950s, "Radio Craft" was named "Radio-Electronics" and "Radio News" was "Electronics World". "Radio News" had also spawned a magazine dedicated to hobbyist, "Popular Electronics". In January 1972, Ziff Davis Publishing decided to merge "Electronics World" into "Popular Electronics". The editorial direction changes at "Popular Electronics" cause many of their authors to start writing for "Radio-Electronics". This included Don Lancaster, Daniel Meyer, Forrest Mims, Ed Roberts, John Simonton and others. There was vigorous competition between the magazines and for a few years the best projects appeared in "Radio Electronics". cite book | last = Mims | first = Forrest M. | authorlink = Forrest Mims | title = Siliconnections: Coming of Age in the Electronics Era | publisher = McGraw-Hill | date = 1986 | location = New York | pages = p. 169 | isbn = 0-07-0242411-X The Popular Electronics management decided to devote more space to audio and citizen's band radio to attract more advertisers. After Radio Electronics' success with the TV Typewriter and Mark 8 computer articles, Popular Electronics renewed the project article competition.]

The tag line on the Radio-Electronics cover from July 1970 to February 1974 was "For Men With Ideas In Electronics". Almost all of the readers of electronics magazines were male. A Ziff-Davis survey in 1981 showed that 97% of the readers were male.cite journal | author = Art Salsberg | date = November 1982 | title = Editorial: Number One! | journal = Computers & Electronics | volume = 20 | issue = 11 | pages = p. 4 | publisher = Ziff Davis Publishing"A survey of subscribers conducted last year confirmed again that the great majority of our readers are male (97%)..."] In April 1972 the cover did not have the tag line and there was a letter to the editors from a female reader titled "Women With Ideas In Electronics." The editors asked readers to write in on what would be an appropriate tag line. The "For Men With Ideas In Electronics" returned the next month and stayed until early 1974 when the tag line was changed to "The Magazine with New Ideas in Electronics." In one last affront to the feminist movement, the June 1974 cover of "Radio-Electronics" has a young lady in a bikini by a swimming pool with that months feature project, a guitar amplifier.

TVT II - CT-1024 Terminal

The original TV Typewriter was difficult to assemble and some of the ICs were going out of production so Southwest Technical Products decided to redesign the kit. The replacement was featured in Radio Electronics as the TV Typewriter II. This time readers did not have to order a set of plans, the complete design was published in 6 issues starting in February 1975.

Daniel Meyer of SWTPC enlisted Ed Colle, an engineer who had worked at Datapoint on terminal design, to design the new TV Typewriter. The SWTPC CT-1024 Terminal displayed 32 characters by 16 lines without scrolling. It used common TTL parts and 2102 static RAMS. The boards were laid out with very loose part spacing and wide traces to make it easy to assemble. A complete set of option boards were offered including a serial interface. The keyboard was based on Don Lancaster’s design. The rest of the terminal was done by Ed Colle.

The design was finished by late 1974 and the kits were ready for sale by December 1974. The first advertisement for the CT-1024 appeared in the Janurary 1975 issue of Popular Electronics on the page facing the Altair 8800 computer article.cite journal | last = Roberts | first = H. Edward | coauthors = William Yates | title = Altair 8800 minicomputer | journal =Popular Electronics | volume =7 | issue =1 | pages = pp. 33–38 | publisher =Ziff-Davis | location =New York | date = January 1975 The full page advertisement, "SWTPC is Proud to Announce the CT-1024 Terminal System", appeared on page 32. The Altair 8800 article started on page 33.] The CT-1024 was very successful because a complete kit with options cost only $275. It was replaced in 1977 by the improved CT-64 that offered scrolling and 64 character per line of upper and lower case.

TV Typewriter Cookbook

By 1975 Don Lancaster had authored over 100 articles in magazines such as "Popular Electronics" and "Radio-Electronics". He had also written a digital design book titled the "RTL Cookbook" in 1968. Resistor-transistor logic (RTL) was an early IC technology that was replaced by TTL, so in 1974 he published the "TTL Cookbook". This book was in print for 20 years and sold a million copies.

The original TV Typewriter was designed before low cost RAM was available and the design was soon obsolete. Don had made many design improvements and published them as the "TV Typewriter Cookbook" in 1976. Portions had been serialized in the first issues of Byte magazine. The book was a guide on how to design a video computer terminal.

* Chapter 1. Some Basics.
* Chapter 2. Integrated Circuits for TVT use.
* Chapter 3. Memory.
* Chapter 4. System Timing - Calculation and Circuits.
* Chapter 5. Cursor and Update Circuits
* Chapter 6. Keyboards and Encoders.
* Chapter 7. Serial Interfaces.
* Chapter 8. Television Interfaces.
* Chapter 9. Hard Copy and Color Graphics.

This book guided many hobbyist and professionals in designing video displays for home computer systems. The cassette interface design from chapter 7 was the basis for the Kansas City Standard. The circuits in this book did not rely on a microprocessor, just TTL logic. The "TV Cheap Video Cookbook" (1978) showed the TVT 6 5/8 that would work with a 6502 or 6800 microprocessor. The design was targeted at the KIM-1 Microcomputer.

The original TV Typewriter book cover shows an ASCII keyboard designed by Don Lancaster and sold by Southwest Technical Products. An early computer store chain, the Byte Shop, had the publisher add their logo to the covers and sold the "TTL Cookbook" and the "TV Typewriter Cookbook" in their stores. A later edition cover was designed for Radio Shack stores. The ninth printing of the first edition was in 1983.

References

Bibliography

Books

Construction articles for TVT I

Construction articles for TVT II

Construction articles for TVT-6

TV Typewriter Cookbook serialized in BYTE magazine

See also

* Home computer
* Personal computer
* History of computing hardware (1960s-present)
* Character generator

External links

* [http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/TV_Typewriter.htm Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter]
* [http://www.tinaja.com/glib/waywere.pdf Don Lancaster's autobiography]

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TV Typewriter

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