1 Nov
2007
1 Nov
'07
6:34 p.m.
Subject: Re: modern serial terminal
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:23:48 -0700
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
At 3:43 PM -0700 11/1/07, David Griffith wrote:
Get any dumb laptop with a 386 or higher plug in an external keyboard
and load dos, under dos load your favorite terminal emulator. I have
a Modular Systems 486/50 with 32Mb ram brick running W98 to do that.
It has NIC, Parallel, serial, PS/2 Mouse, PS2 keyboard and S7 VGA
in a 3"x5"x12" package and runs off a 12V at 1A wart. It was designed
as a thin (diskless) client but a 2.5" 1gb disk mounts nicely. SIIG
also made bricks that would do well for that also. Bottom line is
there are plenty of small systems with more than enough power to
do a VTxxx. If not you can get PC104 with dualcore. But really
DEC did VT52 with random logic, Vt100 was 8080, Vt220 was 8051
and VT320 used two 8051s. It doesn't need a lot of CPU to do
terminal other than PC display interface and keyboard is high
software overhead. So there exists enough hardware out there that
is smaller than the keyboard and a 15" LCD already.
I'm thinking of a device about the size of a
couple CD jewel cases that
has two serial ports, a ps/2 or usb port, VGA port, power jack, and
perhaps a JTAG header concealed within. This device is a regular RS232
serial terminal. Plug in a monitor, keyboard, and something talking rs232
and you're ready to go. Inside there would be a microprocessor, some ram,
some flash, and an FPGA to take care of glue logic and talking to the VGA
port. The FPGA would be loaded with the digital schematics of a
particular terminal and its firmware, for instance, a Wyse 85 or 99GT (my
favorites). That would get you most of the usual emulations.
How hard would it be to create something like this? How much would it
cost?
Just buy an HP Think Client. Older models show up on eBay for ~$100.
Out of curiousity, does anyone have experience with the HP Thin
Clients? I've been thinking about getting either a VT525 or one of
the HP Thin Clients. BTW, from where I'm sitting the most important
thing is how such a
device handles the keyboard, I need the keypad to act right when I'm
in VMS.
I have yet to find a PC terminal emulation that gets the keypad near
right. Some fail badly on VT52/100 emulation as well. So when
the OS want a VTxxx I have a VT100/125/320/340/1200 as needed.
Another area where they fail often is the DEC request "what are you"
and often most terminal emulators put squiggles on the screen rather
than handle the ESC correctly.
Allison
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |