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The printer took a big roll of paper, maybe 5 inches in diameter (although I don't have it here to check). I was a bit surprised that they didn't trim the roll
by kens 2y ago
The printer took a big roll of paper, maybe 5 inches in diameter (although I don't have it here to check). I was a bit surprised that they didn't trim the roll down to the minimum size necessary, but just used a full roll. I guess they didn't want to waste paper :-) Also, I'm surprised that they used cheap-looking yellow paper rather than white paper, but maybe there's a reason teletypes used yellow paper. (The paper hasn't yellowed due to age; it's yellow in contemporary photos.)
- Stratoscope 2y agoMost or all Teletype paper was yellow in the 1970s when I learned to program on Teletypes. Apparently white paper is more common today. (It looks like you used white in one of your photos.)
- kens 2y agoThe photo with white paper is the Thermal Impulse Printer System, a different printer from the Interim Teleprinter. As far as I can tell, the teleprinter always used yellow paper. (This helps to figure out which printer is being used on the Shuttle in a photo, since the captions are usually wrong.)
- SoftTalker 2y agoI remember the yellowish teletype paper rolls from when I was a kid. I always assumed it was just inexpensive paper that was not bleached to pure white. I have never heard of a reason it was that particular color. Some quick searching indicates that yellow is easier on the eyes than pure white (that is given as the reason legal pads are yellow). Or that different wire services would use different color paper. E.g. news wires used white paper, weather services used yellow. So news editors would know the source by the color of the paper.
- noisy_boy 2y agoMaybe in the space shuttle surroundings, white/black/grey are more common than yellow so a printout in yellow could be spotted more easily. May not be the main reason but a useful side effect of the color.