What Is This Mystery Device? Telxon 718

Picked up this oddity at a rummage sale for $1, owner had no earthly idea what it was for. It has what seems like a calculator interface but with only plus and minus, not to mention a very peculiar bell-shaped rubber accessory that likely would have served as some kind of input or output unit.

I have a rough guess of what it was for (after looking up a few of the patent numbers on the back) but am open to suggestions and guesses!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• telxon
• 718
• mystery
• devices
• device
• bell-shaped
• input
• output
• texlon
• ablestmage

[misterniceguy1111]

well i have no clue what it is but it seems like an old 1980s piece of junk lol well anyway in ur vids can u leave up the sentences a bit longer cuz sometimes its hard to catch it w/o pausing and i like to look at the vid and read it soo umm good vids yeah yeah and why dont u talk?

[ablestmage]

I don't like videos where people explain things with their own voice, because often they have some peculiar accent (and my videos reach not just Americans, but Oz and UK, where American sounds funky) so it makes it tougher to understand. Plus, foreign watchers can type the words into an online translator if they want. The reason most of my words go by fast is that the drop-down text doesn't allow for much room, and there's usually a lot to say. Most of them were before annotations came around =P

[hjo3]

Can your camera not focus?

[ablestmage]

affirmative.

[Ruedenim2]

That is a portable barcode scanner. We called them score packs in the grocery store. It is used for inventory and ordering. Basically it needs a scanning pen which probably goes in the hole in the bottom. You scan a barcode and attach a number to it. The number could be how much you are ordering or how much you have. The wierd phone piece is a modem. You dial on a standard phone to a special number and hit send and it sends out your order in blazing 300 baud glory. The 15pin connector is where t

[babalon1971]

it looks like a machine i used 15 years ago for ordering stock via a fax or computer line that went straight to the main warehouse

[devonkd]

its a portable teletransaction computer.

[Winnman05]

It's a Telxon. I work for a grocery wholesaler and we have hundreds in circulation right now. It runs software from a programmable EPROM chip. The thing lasts forever. That bell speaker thingy is where you would put your phone microphone into, as you use sounds to transmit data over a phone line.

[50srefugee]

@Ruedenim2: "Barcode scanner".

Absolutely correct. I worked in the Telxon factory when these were being made. For their day, they were quite flexible. Had their own little programming language, which I have long since forgotten.

[lgbpop]

Oh wow, I haven't seen one of these in ages. I used one when I worked for Keebler in the late 1970s-early '80s. I used it to order replacement product using the barcodes, then transmitted my orders to corporate via telephone with the attached modem (it fit over a standard telephone mouthpiece; there was also a wedge-shaped adaptor for use with Princess-style phones). It was a laugh listening to that thing twitter for five minutes while data was uploaded via phone to the corporate sales office!

[floryzzz]

i tink its a phone

[freezingcathedral]

this is the ancient version of what you see in wal-mart today when the associates are walkin' around with the scannin' guns. in other words, this is the granddaddy of scanning guns.

[ChicagoPaddling]

It's a hand held inventory recorder (but you probably already knew that). With the acoustic coupler you could upload your inventory counts to supplies for replenishment.

[Skoomzer]

hmm it must be the Hellculator

[disturbedsab]

Rueenim2 is right I work at a company were I fix the 701's 610's and the 710's Telxons. They all have a wand scanner but this model is older then those. You have to type all the barcodes in by hand and the ext. pice is called a "boot" so you can send your order over the phone line.

hope this helps