On Jan 20, 12:02 pm, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:

I understand that during the heyday of machine RTTY, they used to send
pictures that we computer people called "ascii art"

Way back when I was a student at The University, we had quite the RTTY
setup at W3ABT. S-line, TT/L demod, Model 19 printer with punch and
reader, patch panel for other things, Heath monitor 'scope set up for
two-loops indication, the works. Had some of that art, too. I still
have one piece of it somewhere, too.

We knew what "chads" were back then.

Among other antennas, we had four elements on 20 meters on a tower on
the roof of the Moore School, where the shack was located. Among other
things, that was where the world's first high-speed, general-purpose,
digital electronic computer (ENIAC) was designed, built, and put into
operation until being moved to Aberdeen, MD.

In QST about 1963 or so there was an article about various RTTY tricks.
One of them was a way to make the paper tape spell out letters in the
holes. If you ran the tape through a printer it looked like garbage but
if you looked at the tape itself the message was perfectlyclear.

Some folks could even do a form of music using the bell and LTRS/FIGS
keys. Early techno?

Ah, the smell of hot oil...

73 de Jim, N2EY