Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Mon, Aug 25,
2014 at 8:16 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Computer-PDT-11-Console-and-Digital-Equipme…
Apparently includes software and documentation as well, who knows how much
or what it is.
Has anyone here ever used an application that required a VT62? I've
read the docs but never encountered any software that used the
features unique to the model.
Under RT-11 and RSTS/E, the KED editor supports the
VT100, the VT52 and the VT62 terminals. DEC produced
9 variants of KED:
Ked.SAV, K52.SAV and K62.SAV for normal RT-11 jobs
under both UnMapped and Mapped RT-11 Monitors although
with a V05.06 Mapped RT-11 Monitor, the cut / paste buffer
is much larger.
Kex.SAV, K5x,SAV and K6x.SAV for RT-11 jobs under
a Mapped Monitor probably expected to be executed as
system jobs.
Ker.SAV, K5r.SAV and K6r.SAV for RSTS/E jobs.
So there is software which is specific for the VT62. Since
I have never had a VT62, I have never used K62.
Because I usually execute under Ersatz-11 which supports
more than 24 line displays (and more than either 80 columns
OR 132 columns), I added code to the VT100 variants to
support the VT420 which supports 48 lines. The executable
files are K42.SAV, K4x.SAV and K4r.SAV, respectively. In
fact, since Ersatz-11 supports up to 255 lines by 255 columns,
K42.SAV also does so, BUT not at the same time (since the
screen buffer would then overflow the available memory).
In practice, even using the Win32 variant of Ersatz-11, the
maximum screen size my video card and monitor are able to
support is 79 lines by 120 columns in narrow mode and
79 lines by 198 columns in wide mode. So there is never
a problem if I stick to those values. The code and data in
K42.SAV have been optimized for use as a background job
under a Mapped RT-11 Monitor when VBGEXE is also
used so that the cut / paste buffer is MUCH larger. In
addition, K42.SAV interrogates the screen size (JUST
ONCE) immediately after the first file name is provided,
so the user can also use a VT100 screen size in addition
to any of the possible sizes which Ersatz-11 can support.
Consequently, no unnecessary characters are wasted on
the screen buffer.
Jerome Fine
