ASR-33 Teletype reliability
The first computer I programmed was a PDP-8e attached to an ASR-33 Teletype, in public school. Some techies and I were using it after school when the paper ran out. There were spare rolls of paper in the "supplies locker", but the teacher with the key had gone home. Inspired, I ran down to the gents' lav, used one of my many keys to jigger the lock open on the paper-towel dispenser, removed the roll of paper towels (which ~just happened~ to be 8.5" wide -- the same width which the ASR-33 needed), ran back to the classroom, and installed it in the Teletype. The TTY printed on it just fine, but the visual quality of the output suffered due to the paper towels being softer and more-absorbant than the hard-finished pulp-paper rolls ordinarily used in Teletypes.
I'd gotten an ASR-33 of my own at a church sale, taken it home, and interfaced it to my Commodore 64. One evening I was using it and saw that the printing had become quite faint, and I didn't have a replacement ribbon handy. Applying WD-40 to the cloth ribbon on the supply reel got me dark printing again.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
