1 Feb
2018
1 Feb
'18
9:56 a.m.
On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
My college experience (1973-1975) with consoles started with a ASR-33, then an LA30, and
finally an LA36. The LA30 was, amazingly enough, even less reliable than the ASR-33. The
LA36, on the other hand, was rock solid (as was the LA120, which I didn't see until
after I went to DEC).
As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions. Lots of operating system console
interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy consoles, and if so a CRT is a
bad idea. But you can certainly make CRT consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC
6000 series.
paul
The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data
Systems c. 1978, it was a
180 CPS dot matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer
in place of a LA36,
I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)