27 Nov
2002
27 Nov
'02
5:44 a.m.
On Tue, Nov 26, 2002 at 11:10:18AM -0800, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I was musing about the state of VT100s and other dumb terminals and
had a few ideas zing by...
Where I'm going with this is embeddability and portability. Obviously,
for use such as we had in the old days, a real Wyse or real VT100 or
VT220 is the way to go... simple and easy... plug it in, turn it on.
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'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.
So has anyone else wrestled with how to cobble up a portable VT-100?
Anyone get any further?
I use my trusty HP200LX for this job. Its a rather small handheld, made
by HP (mine AFAIR in 1993) and basically a XT-in-your-pocket. With 80186
CPU, 640K RAM (+ 1.3 MB RAM-based disk (the 2 MB model)), MS-DOS 5.0 in
ROM (the last stable OS this company made). Has a bunch of built in
applications, among them a terminal application with a very good VT100
emulation. The screen does 80x25 characters (or 640x200 pixels in CGA
graphics mode). Usable keyboard, serial connector (but with special
connector, you either need the original serial cable or you can rig your
own if you know which side of a soldering iron gets hot) and a PCMCIA
slot. Lives a few weeks of use on a set of batteries and seems to be
almost indestructible.
And it is "instant-on" - the power button just sends it to sleep. The
only time I have to actually boot it (takes a few seconds) is when I'm
programming on it and my code decided to branch off to neverland ...
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison