Fig. 8 Morkrum Company No. 12 Typebar Page PrinterPicture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation
Howard Krum’s improved method for operating start-stop, permutation-code telegraph systems was first applied to the Morkrum Green Code apparatus to control the selecting and printing operations of the Blickensdoerfer typewheel typewriter.
At this time the Kleinschmidt company and other manufacturers were starting to produce permutation-code, start-stop telegraph printers using typebar printing like the more modern typewriters which began rapidly to replace the Blickensdoerfer, the Hammond, and the other typewheel printing typewriters. Observing this situation, the Morkrum Company started intensive development work to produce the No. 12 typebar page printer, using the typebars and operating mechanism of the L. C. Smith typewriter and platen of a Woodstock typewriter ([fig. 8]).
Further developments produced the Morkrum No. 11 tape printer which used the Baudot combiner method for selecting and printing characters under control of start-stop, send-receive devices. The No. 11 was a small, compact tape printer operating at fifty words per minute. Quite a number were put into service at hotels and elsewhere for local message service ([fig. 9]).
Fig. 9 Morkrum Company No. 11 Tape PrinterPicture through courtesy of Teletype Corporation
The new No. 12 typebar page printer found numerous applications. It replaced the Green Code and the earlier Blue Code wherever used. The new No. 12 was installed at Western Union, on some railroads, and in the Chicago Police telegraph system. The No. 12s were also installed by Postal Telegraph on intercity circuits and used as receiving units for the Postal Multiplex. The Postal Multiplex had been designed by Morkrum and Postal engineers with the consultant assistance of Donald Murray who was a friendly associate and had a license agreement with the Morkrum Company covering some of his patents. A few No. 12 Morkrums were shipped abroad for use with the Murray Multiplex; the British Post Office Telegraph and the Australian Telegraph Administration were customers.
Late in 1924 the Morkrum Company and the Kleinschmidt Electric Company joined to form the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Corporation. A story telling of the union of these two companies was published by Fortune magazine in March of 1932.[7]
Before going to that story, it may be of interest to describe an important event concerning the change in the supply of electric power from direct current to 60-cycle alternating current and the final timing to exactly 60 cycles per second of all A.C. power supplies so that our electric clocks may be connected to an A.C. outlet and give correct time.
The advent of correctly timed, 60-cycle A.C. electric power, available throughout the nation, was a great boon to the designers of printing telegraph apparatus and some types of facsimile telegraph and picture transmitting systems. In prior years, overline synchronization of send and receive apparatus was always a problem and never perfect. Today, synchronizing apparatus between terminals becomes the simple matter of providing 60-cycle A.C. synchronous motors. Just plug into a power outlet and you have “sync”!