Note
Radio & Television News, Mar 1952, p. 46.
Popular Electronics, Aug 1957, p. 54.
Research & Engineering, Oct 1957, p. 44.
Popular Electronics, Aug 1958, p. 116.
QST, May 1959, p. 186.
The Codetyper, designed by Codetyper Laboratories, was first described in a lengthy article in the March 1952 issue of Radio and Television News. The unit described used 40 miniature vacuum tubes, and it was clear from the article that a working prototype was in hand. But the Codetyper was not subsequently advertised, and was not heard from again until five years later when a version using "12 miniature tubes" appeared in a "new products" announcement in the November issue of Popular Electronics. The same announcement also appeared in the October 1957 issue of Research & Engineering magazine. Then, eight months later, an actual ad appeared in Popular Electronics, Aug 1958, followed by an ad in the May 1959 issue of QST. Advertised as "an electronic brain that sends Morse code," the Popular Electronics and QST ads ran only once.
In 1965, another keyboard called the Codetyper Model 400, was announced by Computronics Engineering in the September issue of CQ. No subsequent advertising has been found.
Because no examples of the Codetyper have been found (as of this writing) it is probable that none were ever sold.
Meanwhile, CW keyboard construction projects began to pop up in hobby magazines including a device called the Codamite, described in a May 1961 QST construction article, and in August 1965, a Morse "typewriter" project. Another keyboard project called the "Touchcoder II" was described in QST, Jun 1969. But all of these were complex devices beyond the reach of the average amateur.
The Autovolt AC-1 "Alphacoder" was the first commercially available CW keyboard, appearing in the June 1968 issue of Ham Radio magazine. The AC-1 was followed about a year later by the Pickering KB-1, announced in 1969.
References
Radio & Television News, Mar 1952, p. 46.
Brief description. Popular Electronics, Nov 1957, p. 54.
