Bell Atlantic M15 available for pick-up -- Mid-Atlantic Region
Last week I recovered a Teletype M15 from heading to the trash. It's been in storage near Great Falls, VA, for about two decades. I'm told that it came out of a Bell Atlantic central office. The last one there, presumably abandoned in place years ago. And that on its last day all the workers there signed the cover. The cover is white and carries the Bell Atlantic blue and yellow racing-stripe livery plus employee autographs. The sound deadening material on the inside is in quite good shape; one flap needs to be reattached. The unit itself looks to be in pretty good condition, all keycaps in place I haven't tried to move any mechanisms as I imagine that the main shaft needs to be attended to first. Note that this is a 5-bit BAUDOT machine, so all UPPER CASE plus digits and some other symbols. There are hobbyist-implementations using a MCU to translate between BAUDOT and ASCII. It uses a 60mA interface to a typical signaling voltage around 100 Vdc; there are hobbyist-implementations to handle conversion to either 20mA and/or RS-232 signal levels. Photos are posted at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WOey5abqLVmyBHq9jedAZcbb9ADx4We7?usp =sharing I will try to answer any questions that those photos may inspire, or take additional photos of specific areas if requested. At the moment it's located near Wheaton, MD. If there is a committed recipient in the general vicinity of Lewes, DE, then I probably can get it transported there on Saturday the 12th (one week from yesterday) by a hobbyist who is making an infrequent trip to the DC area. It there is a committed recipient in the vicinity of Wall, NJ, then I may be able to get it transported further from Lewes to the VCF swap meet on October 17th (https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/). Next Saturday the 12th would still be a critical date on that path as the hobbyist stopping by on the 12th would be the "mule" to the VCF swap meet. So if relocation to either Lewes, DE, or Wall, NJ (only on Oct. 17th) would "seal the deal" for someone then TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. And a firm commitment! Hopefully there is someone here (or perhaps a friend/associate of someone here) who would like to receive this unit, gratis :-}. For speed of response/interaction I recommend email to me directly at pbirkel@gmail.com <mailto:pbirkel@gmail.com> with cc: to the list as deemed appropriate to the community conversation. Thank you, * paul [PS: Of course I've also posted to the Greenkeys mailing list.]
Right. I’m the guy in Lewes DE and plan to connect with Paul next weekend. I could help get this to Wall, or the Philadelphia area if we can find an interested party. Hope we can find a home and new owner for this cool antique! Awesome to see one of these in action. Sent from my iPad
On Sep 6, 2026, at 7:03 AM, pbirkel--- via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Last week I recovered a Teletype M15 from heading to the trash.
It's been in storage near Great Falls, VA, for about two decades. I'm told that it came out of a Bell Atlantic central office. The
last one there, presumably abandoned in place years ago. And that on its last day all the workers there signed the cover.
The cover is white and carries the Bell Atlantic blue and yellow racing-stripe livery plus employee autographs. The sound deadening material on the inside is in quite good shape; one flap needs to be reattached. The unit itself looks to be in pretty good condition, all keycaps in place I haven't tried to move any mechanisms as I imagine that the main shaft needs to be attended to first.
Note that this is a 5-bit BAUDOT machine, so all UPPER CASE plus digits and some other symbols. There are hobbyist-implementations using a MCU to translate between BAUDOT and ASCII. It uses a 60mA interface to a typical signaling voltage around 100 Vdc; there are hobbyist-implementations to handle conversion to either 20mA and/or RS-232 signal levels.
Photos are posted at:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WOey5abqLVmyBHq9jedAZcbb9ADx4We7?usp =sharing
I will try to answer any questions that those photos may inspire, or take additional photos of specific areas if requested.
At the moment it's located near Wheaton, MD.
If there is a committed recipient in the general vicinity of Lewes, DE, then I probably can get it transported there on Saturday the 12th (one week from yesterday) by a hobbyist who is making an infrequent trip to the DC area.
It there is a committed recipient in the vicinity of Wall, NJ, then I may be able to get it transported further from Lewes to the VCF swap meet on October 17th (https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/). Next Saturday the 12th would still be a critical date on that path as the hobbyist stopping by on the 12th would be the "mule" to the VCF swap meet.
So if relocation to either Lewes, DE, or Wall, NJ (only on Oct. 17th) would "seal the deal" for someone then TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. And a firm commitment!
Hopefully there is someone here (or perhaps a friend/associate of someone here) who would like to receive this unit, gratis :-}.
For speed of response/interaction I recommend email to me directly at pbirkel@gmail.com <mailto:pbirkel@gmail.com> with cc: to the list as deemed appropriate to the community conversation.
Thank you,
* paul
[PS: Of course I've also posted to the Greenkeys mailing list.]
participants (2)
-
Glenn Roberts -
pbirkel＠gmail.com