14 Apr
2014
14 Apr
'14
12:01 p.m.
On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Evan Koblentz <news at snarc.net> wrote:
Bozhe moy!
It begs the question... for the era, what _would_ be the right thing?
Real DEC VT100s weren't under export restrictions, but they were
expensive in the early 1980s (then when the VT220 came out, _those_
were expensive and VT100 prices dropped quickly on the 3rd-party
market).
I'm sure the Russians would have had their own terminals, just for
Cyrillic characters if nothing else, but what did the housings look
like? Boxy metal like old Beehives? Rounded boxes like VT100s? I
know a little about Russian PDP-8 and PDP-11 clones but very little
about Russian dumb terminals.
-ethan
I did find the
use of VT100 terminals in the desks of the KGB interesting.
It's better than the alternative: I had to talk them out of using Commodore
PETs.