Teletype Machines
Teletype machines were used from 1910 until 1980 (?) to send and receive characters over telegraph lines. They were made of electrical and mechanical parts. They printed characters on a roll of paper. Various mechanical actions of the machine were requested from a distance by sending control characters over the line. A common control sequence was "carriage return" followed by "linefeed".
In the early days of small computers (1972-1982) teletypes were
often the sole means of input and output to the computer.
These tty (teletype) machines printed with fixed-size characters
(like their electric typewritter cousins).
The tag used in HTML for fixed-size (non-proportional) font is
Some models of tty's could be used off-line (not connected to anything). The user could slowly and carefully type a message (or program) and have it recorded as holes punched on a paper tape. The device on the left of the machine in the photo is the paper tape reader/puncher. Once the paper tape was correct, the tty was put on-line and the paper tape was quickly read in. In those days, paper tape was mass storage.
The web pages of the North American Communications Museum Off-site link have more information on teletypes.
