Siemens T100 Teleprinter: Ancestor of Today's Network Printers

Once upon a time, there were neither inkjet nor laser printers. Networked printers, as we know them now, didn’t come to exist either. However, there was technology that allowed a printing task (actually only a text), to be performed by a device in a remote place.

The technology was telegraphy and the device was telex.

Developed in the middle of 19 century, by 1940’s telegraphy had become the most common type of connection between cities, countries, and even continents, so messages could be sent across the globe.

Telegraphic messages were received and printed out by the telex, a special kind of printer that produced a hard copy of a message. One of the most popular telexes was Siemens T100, a page printer that dates way back to the 1960’s. All of the UK military services and on the commercial telex system used Siemens T100 widely.