Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score

On 5/4/2006 at 6:39 PM Richard wrote: My early exposure to terminals was of the printing variety. The console typewriter on the 1620 (NOT a Selectric, BTW), then some ASR-33s. Most of the systems I used offered some sort of interactive capability only as an afterthought. Text editing on an ASR-33 was ridiculous--give me a keypunch any day! The first non-printing terminals that I used were the CDC Intercom terminals, but Intercom was intended as an RJE system--a terminal, a card reader and a printer. (BTW, the small drum printers on those things were pretty neat--I wonder if any have survived). I built a TV Typewriter for my MITS box, but I yearned for an ASR-33 to handle printing and punched tape storage. It wasn't until about 1977 or so, when I acquired a Beehive terminal and a Diablo daisywheel to add to my MITS box. I wrote my own full-screen editor and edited my files locally before uploading them. Similarly, I'd use the MITS to spool my output to the Diablo (not a 620, but rather the 12-bit parallel interface printer--I don't recall the model). Along the way, I took on some contracts writing terminal firmware, but compared to what a processor could do with some disk storage, a terminal seemed so lame. Mostly, terminals were cheap--a Wyse 50 was lots cheaper than even the cheapest IBM PC. Did anyone mention Tab as a terminal maker? They were, you know--they had a very sturdy version of the VT-220 that I recall--if I dig a bit, I may even have some firmware in source form for one of those things. I was less impressed with later Beehive terminals--they all seemed to have some bugs with the firmware. But even when I was using a VAX with direct-wired terminals, I much preferred a PC with a Hercules Graphics Plus card to any terminal--I could do so much more--and the fonts were pretty presentable. Hercules graphics weren't bad either. Cheers, Chuck