Now this wouldn't be a fixture in all offices by any means but larger organisations, especially those which relied on timely information like newspaper offices, would have a teleprinter. This was a device which could send textual messages over the telephone line (or a company's private network if you were really posh). The messages sent were encoded in a variety of formats, 5 and 8 bit codes were the most common.
You could either have a simple receiver which printed received messages onto paper or a transceiver which also allowed you to send messages too using a typewriter like keyboard. Both machines would encode and decode the message for you so all you needed to do was type and the machine did the rest. Some teleprinters also allowed you to send messages encoded onto paper tape beforehand which could be handy if you wanted to send the message when the telephone charges were lower for example. Systems like the Post Office telegram service which was introduced in 1927 could send 65 words per minute so it was a fast way to send important information, the most important use of this technology of course being the iconic teleprinter showing the football results on Grandstand!
Naturally such systems is now sadly obsolete, replaced by new fangled technologies like the fax machine and email. Teleprinters are still used in the aviation industry though many of these print to screen and not to paper.
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| Two Teleprinter adverts (from the Post Office Telecoms Journal) |
