Open source, stand alone, ASCII terminal project, UPDATE

Back in December I posted about an open source, stand alone ASCII terminal project for old computers - http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2008-December/265312.html The VT6, a simplified single host port version, is available now - PC boards, partial kits and full kits of all parts. It was actually available back in March, but the first run of parts sold out just on the Spare Time Gizmos group and I never got a chance to announce it elsewhere. The second, much larger, run of parts is now available and hopefully there should be plenty this time around. The VT6 is a small PC board, about 2.5" by 4", that uses a VGA monitor and a PS/2 keyboard and is able to do pretty much anything a VT220 can. The firmware is about 95% written in C (with about 5% assembler) and is open source and GPL licensed. The tool chain used for development, including the SDCC C compiler, is all free. The microprocessor is flash based and firmware updates can be downloaded from any PC over an ordinary serial port.

If you need a terminal, it's just the thing to stick in the back of your classic computer. The hardware for the other version of this terminal, known as the VT5 is also finished and really only needs the firmware to be ready. The VT5 supports multiple host ports and sessions with split screen displays, downloadable fonts and (if we can get the firmware written!) ReGIS and/or Tek 4010 type graphics. The firmware is really the limiting factor for everything (isn't that always the truth??) and we could use help with the programming. There's a Source Forge project for the firmware here - http://vt4.sourceforge.net and the Spare Time Gizmos page for the VT6 parts and PCBs is here - http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/VT.htm There's also a manual (unfinished - we could use help with that too!) - http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Downloads/vt.pdf Bob Armstrong