TV Typewriter

The TV Typewriter is a video terminal that could display two pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The design, by Don Lancaster, appeared on the cover of Radio-Electronics magazine in September 1973.

The magazine included a 6-page description of the design but readers could send off for a 16-page package of construction details. Radio-Electronics sold thousands of copies for $2.00 each. The TV Typewriter is considered a milestone in the home computer revolution along with the Mark-8 and Altair 8800 computers.

Sometimes the term was used generically for any interactive computer display on a screen; until CRT displays were developed, the teleprinter was the standard output medium.