Modern replica/implementation of a dumb terminal?

I have heard of people using an HP LX palmtop (the 100LX/200LX have a fuller serial port implementation than does the 95LX) as a terminal for the type of tasks you mention. The 200LX runs MS-DOS 5.0 on an i80186, so you should be able to get a number of terminal emulation programs that will work on it. -----Original Message----- From: Ethan Dicks [mailto:erd_6502@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 1:10 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Modern replica/implementation of a dumb terminal? I was musing about the state of VT100s and other dumb terminals and had a few ideas zing by... <snip> I have used my Palm Pilot as a portable terminal for reconfiguring Cisco routers (VT100 app and a travel cable and the appropriate RS-232 dongles). My boss at the time flipped when he saw me do it (everybody else dragged a laptop into the server room). There are just times when I'd like a laptop-sized-or-smaller ANSI terminal. I can forego double-high/double-wide chars, inverse video and the like for simplicity's sake (hardly ever used them in an app except at the South Pole), but it should be complex enough to run a screen editor (vi or emacs) and/or basic curses apps (Rogue/Larn/NetHack and the like). One place I thought BIOS replacement might be handy was in a sub-486 laptop.... just pull it out, plug it in and *voila*, it's a dumb terminal weighing a few lbs. Yes, it's possible to drop an OS on a floppy and add Kermit (I've already done that with a dual-720K- floppy Zenith 8088 portabie). I'm thinking of a dedicated "instant- on" experience. I also have some "Net Stations" with a 5"x5" 486 motherboard stuffed under a PC keyboard (with 4 30-pin SIMM sockets, IDE, serial, video, and NE2000 network built-in). They don't run off batteries, but neither do they have an intergral screen. I've also tried to think of ways to adapt a Palm Pilot with a permanent keyboard, but I'm not sure there's a way to do it with only one serial port (terminals typically have at least two, even if one is dedicated to servicing the keyboard and somewhat "invisible" to normal operation. The final angle I've worked on is to recycle the main board in a VT220 (being somewhat physically small), but I don't have schematics and I don't know what signals go over the ribbon cable to the PSU/ Analog board under the CRT. So has anyone else wrestled with how to cobble up a portable VT-100? Anyone get any further? -ethan __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com