VT100's

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Tapley, Mark via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>         I have more desire to own systems to play on than I have space or time.

True for most of us, I suspect.

>         Addressing the former, I have to say my favorite VT-100-alike is a Rainbow. One box (plus monitor plus the dreaded LK-201), three functions in the collection: VT-100 emulation (not perfect but not bad), CPM-80/86 (is that one or two functions?), MS-DOS 3.11b.

I have only recently learned of the built-in VT100 emulation.  I'm
curious how it's "not perfect".

>         Having a Rainbow has pretty much forestalled any desire to get a “real” VT-100 for me.

I've had real VT-100s (VT-101s, VT102s...) for quite some time, but
because of partial compatibility with other systems (RX50s along with
memory map differences) I was never big on running a Rainbow.  These
days, though, I'm interested in them as CP/M boxes more than running
DOS, just because it's trivial to set up a white box to run DOS but
there aren't that many kinds of CP/M machines after the S-100 era.

So a single box that is itself a decent VT-100 and runs CP/M is
suddenly worth some desk space.

And because it's my focus, the first thing I want to run on any CP/M
box is going to be text adventures (Infocom and Scott Adams for
certain).

-ethan

P.S. - and the same line of reasoning has the VT-180 on my radar but
I've never seen one go by close enough or cheap enough to jump on.