Telex Sagem TX35 ( aka Telecom Australia 2000 )

[RetroHospital]

Hello !

One 37kg (I suppose that's 70 pounds) beast landed in my house, a 1985 Telex / teletypewriter model sagem, used in a lot of countries under different names



The unit works fine however it refuses to do anything complaining of "telex line", I suppose it wants the telephone network and this won't happen anytime soon, telex network has been shut down in 1996 around here.

WOuld anyone have by any chance
- a user manual for one of these ( I found a small maintenance document of telecom australia online, but that doesn't help)
- used one in the past and know out to get out of the "locked mode" which is the only thing it does when it doesn't see the telex line currently

The only interactive thing I can do is go in "test mode" (just after boot), which confirms the units works greats ; but it gets out of test mode after 20 sec of inactivity ;( and then you've got a screen the unit is "locked" (there's that message on top of the screen) and the keyboard does nothing.


thanks !

 

[IBM Portable PC]

This should help: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7...drivesdk&resourcekey=0-cL6ODZGVnjLNgXp-Oc8--A

 

[g4ugm]

Whilst TELEX may have gone away there is a very active TELEX group on the internet. Its mostly in German but google will help...

Start

Die offizielle Homepage für das TelexPhone / i-Telex System, mit dem man alte Telex Geräte bzw. Fernschreiber wieder zu neuem Leben erwecken kann.

www.i-telex.net

the green keys groups

GreenKeys Info Page

have RTTY broadcasts via audio internet streams, but most are 45.5 baud and the manual shows yours is 50/100/150 but there are some usable streams. Google i-tty or check out

RTTY ITTY Feeds | RTTY Feeds

List of RTTY RATT Frequencies and streams

rttyonline.com

 

[RetroHospital]

Thanks @IBM Portable PC that is invaluable info ! I heard about this same manual but I had to travel to a museum to see a copy.

I'm gonna read it.

By the way I solved my initial problem about the unit complaining about no telex line ; this can be solved by shorting two pins on the connector (which is usually happening when you plug the unit on the wall), I'll try to post the exact details for future generations
Once the unit thinks it is connected you can use basic feature like typing text and browsing the memory of contacts.
Some configuration seems to be saved in an EPROM and had to be modified by a technician of the telecom operator back in the days.
I got most of this info discussing with retired technicians of the operator over here


I also heard someone made sort of a RS232 to telex converter, which can be done in a variety of ways, the ones I've seen actually re creates telex line levels, but it sems to me you can relatively easily find TTL levels of the signal inside the unit (between the boards) and it woud make sense to connect those signales to an arduino or similar for an easier implementation. (I've not done it)

 

[IBM Portable PC]

Thanks @IBM Portable PC that is invaluable info ! I heard about this same manual but I had to travel to a museum to see a copy.

I'm gonna read it.

By the way I solved my initial problem about the unit complaining about no telex line ; this can be solved by shorting two pins on the connector (which is usually happening when you plug the unit on the wall), I'll try to post the exact details for future generations
Once the unit thinks it is connected you can use basic feature like typing text and browsing the memory of contacts.
Some configuration seems to be saved in an EPROM and had to be modified by a technician of the telecom operator back in the days.
I got most of this info discussing with retired technicians of the operator over here


I also heard someone made sort of a RS232 to telex converter, which can be done in a variety of ways, the ones I've seen actually re creates telex line levels, but it sems to me you can relatively easily find TTL levels of the signal inside the unit (between the boards) and it woud make sense to connect those signales to an arduino or similar for an easier implementation. (I've not done it)

The EPROM contained the machines name i.e. equivalent to a phone number but a word. Also, telex machines use the 5 bit baudot code and not ASCII, however, devices existed to convert between them and you can likely find some linux software, etc.