WRU - The more things change…
WRU is a special purpose key on a teletype machine. It's short for 'Who Are You?'.
It would great to have one of those on today's version of the Great Network.
When two teletype machines were connected over dedicated circuits, hitting the WRU key would trigger the remote machine into responding with its identity, which would then print out on your paper roll.
That was the 'screen' - a roll of newsprint.
The teletype in the photo below has a paper tape reader so the operator doesn't have to type live. Line costs were VERY expensive so you wanted to be able to type offline, print that out to 1/2 inch stiff paper tape, which you'd then insert into the tape reader. It 'uploaded' the data far more quickly than a human operator.
Dial the remote machine, do your WRU, and start feeding tape.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="440" caption="Teletype (Image resides @ Clemson.edu)"]
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The keys were big, klunky and a real b!tch for touch typing. There were, however, customized tape machines: they couldn't go online but they could produce the paper tape that plugged into the teletype for faster transmission. The tape machines were smaller, had way better keyboards, and therefore allowed for faster, more accurate typing.
If we were in a real hurry...
This was for one of the world's largest heavy equipment manufacturers and among the clients were some VERY big construction companies that lost mega bucks for every minute that their equipment was down. So we were nearly always in a real hurry at some point during the day.
Emergency parts orders went out by teletype and stuff was flown in. If contractors were in penalty mode, they'd pay whatever it took to get the parts to the job site. And yell and scream at you while they waited.
So to speed things up, you'd generate a couple of feet of paper tape on the tape machine, string it right into the teletype - so you now have an internal network connection made out of paper. Fire up the teletype, and start feeding tape.
Then back to the tape machine to continue typing. These were long part numbers, quantities, customer info, along with some live chat.
The idea was to type faster than the teletype could send, or the paper tape would break. While the teletype's clanking away like some demented machine and the contractor is still screaming.
But for all the aggravation, it was comforting to know that if you hit the WRU key, you'd get an honest answer.
-g
PS - The teletype machine in the photo appears to only be able to receive an incoming connection - don't see the rotary dial anywhere. Plus it's time to change that paper roll - the red stripe shows up on the far right when the paper's running low. And if you don't change it in time, your 'screen' goes blank and all that data will be lost.
