Mark Meiss wrote:
I've just gotten my hands on a working AT&T
Sceptre system, which is a
1983 Videotex terminal that implements the NAPLPS standard for vector
graphics transmission (the same sort of graphics that was used by the
Prodigy online service, if you remember that). It powers up fine and
generates the welcome screen, which includes a "Press [Data] to login"
message. Once you press [Data], the screen blanks, and I presume that
it's trying to establish some sort of connection over the RS-232 port.
I've just started poking at the thing and haven't gotten far, as I
need to grab a null modem from elsewhere, but I thought there might be
a chance that somebody out there has the documentation for one of
these things. Through searching about, I'm fairly certain that it's
hardwired to speak 1200/7E1 on the serial port, but what it's
expecting to hear is the question. Just a stream of NAPLPS-encoded
data? Or is there more negotiation to be done?
I am guessing it hardwrired for 1200/7E1 download and 300/7E1 uploading.
Here in Canada you had more NAPLPS stuff, but NAPLPS terminals where
allways a rare item to be found.
I have at least found an online source for the NAPLPS
encoding itself:
http://netghost.narod.ru/gff/vendspec/naplps/naplps.txt