Hi, I know this does not exist, but could there be a way to plug in a wifi-enabled dongle into teletype and allow a remote computer to term into teletype? Use one of the popular terminal programs (like Putty) to mirror the teletype display onto the remote machine, and edit teletype with the same keystrokes and interface as if a keyboard is plugged into the teletype USB?
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think such a capability could be pretty useful! My use case is that I would like to build a microsystem around a teletype and an ER-301, but carrying a keyboard for just the teletype (in additon to an MS Surface with Live) is kind of a drag. I’ve seen quite a few posts about kvm switch use and teletype, so I think there are others that think the same way.
This would be super useful! The idea was floated here of using the UART header to connect a UART/USB bridge to add a keyboard port so you could use the front panel port for a Grid or USB disk. You could also solder some right-angle pin headers onto the pads for this purpose on the back of Teletype, and use an FTDI cable (5V, like this one) to connect Teletype to your PC and then use a terminal emulator like Putty to talk to the serial port. Either of these options is also going to involve some firmware hacking to get the Teletype environment wired up, and to use a terminal in place of the Teletype display you would have the extra challenge of emulating the Teletype UI†. Wireless options are also interesting but it seems like power would be more of a concern there, plus the devices themselves are gonna be more expensive and probably more complicated. If you have an interest in pursuing this project I think it would open up a lot of doors, it’s one of a number of things I plan on working on in some very loosely defined “eventually” type time frame.
†Not too sure how this would work. You would need to define some message protocol for Teletype to tell you what to draw and then process it in custom PC-side software, no way you would want to blit the whole framebuffer over the serial port.
The FTDI cable with a female type-A usb port would be ace for a home setup. For a mobile setup, I’d much prefer the wireless option, as USB ports are hard to come by and I don’t want to carry around a hub!