File:Radio Electronics Cover Sept 1973.jpg

Summary
Radio-Electronics, September 1973, Volume 44, Number 9

Gernsback Publications, Inc. Publisher: M. Harvey Gernsback, Editor: Larry Steckler, Cover Photo by Walter Herstatt

TV Typewriter, by Don Lancaster. The device could display 2 pages of 16 lines of 32 upper-case characters on any TV screen. This challenging project could be built for around $120 of parts. The circuit boards were available from Southwest Technical Products for $33. The article (on pages 43-52) gives a description of the features and circuit. Readers could order a 16 page booklet for $2.00 that showed complete schematics and printed circuit board layouts. Thousands were sold. The unit on the cover shows a keyboard from the February 1973 issue. Another TV Typewriter prototype is shown on page 45.

"A giant step toward the realization of the personal-computer dream happened in 1973, when Radio Electronics published an article by Don Lancaster that described a "TV Typewriter." -

Hugo Gernsback started Radio Craft in 1929. The magazine became Radio-Electronics in 1948 and then Electronics Now in 1992. It was published until December 1999 when it merged with Popular Electronics to become Poptronics.

This 8.25 by 11.25 inch (21 by 28 cm) magazine has 110 pages. The monthly paid circulation was about 160,000.

Source: This cover was scanned by User:Swtpc6800 on an Epson Perfection 1240U at 300 ppi with half-tone de-screening enabled and stored as TIFF. The image was touched up in Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 and this copy saved as a 36 ppi JPEG.

Fair Use in TV Typewriter

 * The TV Typewriter project is considered a milestone in the personal computer revolution. The prototype is on display in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
 * Don Lancaster would write 3 books on low cost computer displays.
 * This issue shows the cover style in the early 1970s. The subtitle "For Men with Ideas in Electronics" was used from July 1970 to early 1974.
 * The TV Typewriter on the cover shows the hand made keyboard project from the February 1973 issue of Radio-Electronics.
 * The cover photo shows how compact the TV Typewriter was.
 * The resolution is the minimum to show the text on the TV screen.


 * There is no free equivalent of a magazine cover, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The copyright for Radio-Electronics is held by Poptronix Inc.