Old Tandy laptops

There was a coupler you stuck up to the mouthpiece, and the receiving end translated that into data.

That was the thing about the Tandys, they had utility. In the era before cell-phone hookups and wireless, they were the thing to use, especially if you didn't know whether your laptop's modem was compatible with your location's phone system.

 

What's a pay phone?

 

The couplers were interesting to say the least. I once tried to send from the Carrierdome in Syracuse and all that noise bouncing off the walls interfered with the signal and would not allow me to send a test or notes during the game.

 

One of the other quirks was every system seemed to have different parameters for the modem, and different coding to get the file into their system.

 

That's some crazy shit. I feel behind the times with a four-year old laptop that needs a wireless card.

 

We went through this a few weeks ago. They were Xerox telecopiers and then there were Qwips. Type a page on a typewriter, put it on this roller contraption, call office and tell them to set up the telecopier, both put the phone in a modem, and in 4 or 6 minutes, the page would transmit to the office. There was a mirror system involved. If the mirrors got dirty, the pages would split, so the left side of the paper would be on the right and the right on the left.
The Xerox version was as big as a suitcase and very fragile. The Qwip was smaller and there was room in the case for a bottle of Jack ... or something similar.
There were companies that supplied telecopier service for traveling writers because if you took one with you, the airlines would trash them. Sportscom was one. They'd call you in your hotel room and ask if you needed them ... for a price, obviously.
Early in my career (this is mid 70s), the classified dept. figured out that telecopiers were a good thing. The telecopier in my office was in sports. So, we had to take the classified ads. There was an advertising company that was three blocks away. The girl they had sending the pages, I talked to her on the phone like 10 times a day. She was as sweet as could be. One Friday, she calls just before 5 p.m. with 10 pages, that's more than 60 minutes. I say, "Why don't you just bring them over." I'm joking, but she says, "I'll be there in 10 minutes." She was absolutely beautiful, but I was too damn tongue-tied to do anything about it. And I had to work that night (and most nights) anyway. So goes the life of a sportswriter.

 

I've seen them on ebay for about 10 bucks.

 

A quick P.S. -- The Tandys were awesome. And I never knew about the bank function. I could could cover a college football game and just about max out the memory -- 35 inch gamer, 18 inch sidebar, 12-15 inch notes and scoring summary.

 

Yeah, telecopier. And I'd forgotten all about Sportscom. Trying to repress the memories, I guess. Thanks, SoCal.

 

That's what 72k of memory will do.

 

Ah the TRash-80s. Filed a milliion stories with those, both with the couplers and with the plug-in phone lines that featured the little box that had the phone plugs going in and out.

The couplers were a trip. I worked at one paper where that was the only way to send, where you had to push the receiver down HARD in the couplers for it to work. I worked at two others where it was a miracle if the story went through with the couplers. And God forbid you only had a digital phone line; you were screwed.

I can remember one night from a Bob's Big Boy in Palm Springs, where I used to go to file stories when I had to cover games there. This gang-banger was taking up the one working pay phone and when I went up there one too many times for his taste, he nearly punched me.

I asked him if I could use the phone. He shot me a look like "Get away MFer." I pulled out a $10 bill and offered it to him for the phone. He hung up the phone and left.

And yes, the 300 baud filing speed, with the lines scrolling before you. One notch above carrier pigeon.

Good times, good times -- when it worked.