<story><title>Space Shuttle teleprinter reverse engineering</title><url>https://twitter.com/kenshirriff/status/1770188240777044079</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>generj</author><text>I am fascinated they used 60 pounds and a large amount of space for this teleprinter. At 30K per pound of payload that is $1.8 million per flight. Really shows how important reliable printed updates were considered.&lt;p&gt;And all the flaws of the printer that were managed around - turning it off to save power and prevent it overheating with specific tones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>beerandt</author><text>The thing that immediately jumped into my head is coded military use. Especially since they mention the printer being based on a military design.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s still rather obscure, if not still secret, just to what extent we were actually using the shuttles in their intended military capacity.&lt;p&gt;But when designed, the military use was expected to be much much higher than what panned out.&lt;p&gt;This printer would be high on the list of the weight budget, to the point that I wonder if it wasn&amp;#x27;t critical protocol to some still secret military use, similar to the teletype nuke codes &amp;#x2F; orders on a sub.&lt;p&gt;Running over the audio system also makes me curious if it was strictly unencrypted comms, or if it could plug in to a decrypted steam. Were they clear broadcasting coded messages, or encrypted-broadcast clear messages (or both or neither).&lt;p&gt;IIRC, NASA used to have at least some &amp;#x27;private&amp;#x27; comms with astronauts that were in the clear, but they basically just didn&amp;#x27;t rebroadcast to the public or publicize those currently used frequencies, and just sort of trusted those in the know not to listen in.</text></comment>
<story><title>Space Shuttle teleprinter reverse engineering</title><url>https://twitter.com/kenshirriff/status/1770188240777044079</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>generj</author><text>I am fascinated they used 60 pounds and a large amount of space for this teleprinter. At 30K per pound of payload that is $1.8 million per flight. Really shows how important reliable printed updates were considered.&lt;p&gt;And all the flaws of the printer that were managed around - turning it off to save power and prevent it overheating with specific tones.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tyingq</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s my guess.  Government bureaucracy is probably very high for anything space related.  So &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;based on the military&amp;#x27;s AN&amp;#x2F;UGC-74&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; could have helped get it through approvals. It would have ticked a lot of boxes for ruggedized parts, use in harsh environments, and so on.</text></comment>