7 Aug
2011
7 Aug
'11
12:49 p.m.
On 7 Aug 2011 at 18:11, Tony Duell wrote:
I still have an duse several non-microprocessor based terminals. Those I
can understnad how to repair////
In any case, not all terminals are
microprocessor-controlled.
I've owned a couple of those, and also a couple of 8008-based ones
with 1702 EPROMs, shift-register memory... Sure there are complicted terminals, but be
honest. Which would you
rather fix : A VT100 or a modern Wintel PC?
Oh, by far, the Wintel PC. You either replace the motherboard or the
power supply. There just isn't that much more to work on--and nothing that warrants taking the time to bother
working at the chip
level--if your time means anything to you.
It doesn't. Since nobody will pay me for my time, my time is by defintion
worthless.
[...]
Of course, a true "modern" terminal
wouldn't use RS-232, either.
That surely depends on what you want to link it to. A terminal to use as,
say, a PDP11 console, ahs to have either a 20mA loop or an RS232
interface, becuase that's what it has to connect to.
And fortunately this is classiccmp, so we can tale about real VT100s, etc...
-tony