While in London in the summer of 1914, Kleinschmidt visited the Managing Director of the Post Office Telegraph at his office to apologize for having had Mr. Creed exhibit the Kleinschmidt perforator instead of bringing it personally as had been requested. The Managing Director replied that Mr. Creed had indeed given a very good operating exhibition of the device and that an order for twenty had been placed with him. “However,” he added, “you know, we sent you an official invitation and expected your appearance with your machine!”
To continue: Upon observing the change in systems at Western Union (switching from the Barclay to the Murray Multiplex), the Kleinschmidt Electric Company, who had been experimenting in the development of a telegraph typewriter, built a receiving teletypewriter for the multiplex. It was a magnet-operated, five-unit-code typebar page printer, using the Underwood typewriter mechanisms as a basis; and it was completed in time for test and evaluation at Western Union in competition with the typewheel printers of both L. M. Potts and Western Electric.
The Western Electric machine was given the number 1A, Mr. Potts’s, 2A, and the Kleinschmidt printer was 3A. The final outcome of the tests was the selection of the Kleinschmidt model, and the company received an order for five machines, to include a spare, to equip the New York terminal of a New York-to-Boston, four-channel multiplex system. The order was filled in a short time and the machines were put on test.
Fig. 1 Kleinschmidt Keyboard-Operated Morse-Code Perforator (this machine returned to author by a customer after being used thirty years!)
Fig. 2 3B Typebar Page Printer of Kleinschmidt Electric Companyfrom Museum of Kleinschmidt Division of SCM Corporation
Kleinschmidt watched the operation of his machines in service almost every day and was continually on the lookout for possible ways to improve and simplify the apparatus. The tests ran through to completion satisfactorily, and, upon submitting an improved design, numbered the 3B, the Kleinschmidt Electric Company received an order for one hundred typebar page printers. The 3B thereafter became standard apparatus and additional orders were placed as the multiplex system at Western Union expanded (see [figure 2]).
Several years later, Western Union efficiency engineers found that, due to circuit failures, certain parts of messages would have to be repeated. Because this meant retyping the message, they felt, and for other reasons as well, that printing the received messages on tape would be more economical, since corrections could be inserted without repeating the entire message. To meet this requirement, the typebar page printer was redesigned for printing on tape. This was accomplished by using the same selection controls and operating the typebars to print downward on the tape instead of upward against the platen as in the page printer. A tape gummer to attach the tape to a message blank was also designed. The 21A, later No. 22, tape printer was ordered in quantity thereafter.
Seeing the possibility of using their typebar page printer for direct-line service, the Kleinschmidt company built a motor-driven send-receive unit having a single contact transmitter which operated under control of a code-perforated tape to transmit seven signals in succession: one start, five code, and a stop signal. The receiving unit had a seven-segment commutator, one segment for start, five for code, and one for stop, and a rotating brush to pick up and transmit the received code signals to the printing unit. This apparatus was installed at the United Press for news distribution to their connected newspapers. Another set was installed at the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for station communications, and still another in New York City at the Equitable Life Assurance Society between their downtown and uptown offices. In connection with the latter installation, the Equitable people asked permission to install the printing apparatus on the telephone line and there was objection from the telephone company. However, after some consideration they finally agreed that the apparatus could be installed but warning that should it create interference with the telephone line it would be removed immediately. As it turned out, the printer operation over this telephone circuit did not create any interference and the apparatus remained in service a long time ([figure 3]).