10 Nov
2015
10 Nov
'15
2:52 a.m.
Hi Guys
Going back to the days when I worked in marketing in DEC
Park (Then new ,now demolished)
I had a VT100 on my desk. We all did, email, word processing graphics
and so on.
Now there was one interesting but little known VT100 feature. On the
back it had two BNC connectors.
They were for video in and out. You could sync the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
The only secret was you had to set it for 50Hz .
One of my hobbies then (still is now) was Amateur TV (a branch of ham
radio.)
I had built my own TV camera (we all did). I'd made it small and light
to go portable with.
So I took it to the office early one morning hid it in my gray wall (VMS
manuals) and got it going.
I pointed it down the (very) open plan office and went off to my first
meeting.
It worked, when I got back there was a gaggle of very bemused people
looking at the screen.
Rod Smallwood
10 Nov
10 Nov
3:05 a.m.
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 07:52:51AM +0000, rod wrote:
Now there was one interesting but little known VT100 feature. On the
back it had two BNC connectors.
They were for video in and out. You could sync the VT100 to a feed
of mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
I actually used this once to debug a broken vt220:
http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/vt220-125.jpg
I could verify that the logic board of the vt220 was ok.
/P
5:59 a.m.
On Tue, 10 Nov 2015, rod wrote:
They were for video in and out. You could sync the
VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid picture would appear on the screen and at
the video out connector.
AFAIR you couldn't. You had to synchronize the external video source to
the VT100.
Christian
7:43 a.m.
Ah yes forgot that bit (thirty plus years is a while back) Tee adapter
on VT100 out, cable to cam sync in on cam - cam out to vt100 in.
Ill give it a go later- my video titler has an ext sync connector
On 10/11/15 10:59, Christian Corti wrote:
On Tue, 10 Nov 2015, rod wrote:
They were for video in and out. You could sync
the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid picture would appear on the screen and at
the video out connector.
AFAIR you couldn't. You had to synchronize the external video source
to the VT100.
Christian 
10:42 a.m.
They were for video in and out. You could sync the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
Actually, I beleive (confirmed by the VT100 tech manual and schematics)
that you have to sync the external video to the VT100 and not the other
way round. In other words, you take the signal from the Video Out socket,
extract the sync, then use that to sync the video source (camera or whatever)
that you feed into the Video In socket
The only secret was you had to set it for 50Hz .
It works perfectly well with the VT100 set to 60Hz, provided that is the vertical
rate of the external video source.
-tony
11:05 a.m.
I remember at DEC when we all at VT100?s and then the big day came when we could upgrade
to the ?New Color? monitors Ah just to think of the orange glow of the words radiating
from the screen. Of course you could get green as well. Not a lot of choice compared to
today but ground breaking at the time.
The company I used to work for still makes brand new VT?s since folks like them so much.
VT520 and the DEC style keyboards. Some things never go out of style.
sue
On Nov 10, 2015, at 10:42 AM, tony duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Sue Skonetski
VP of Customer Advocacy
Sue.Skonetski at vmssoftware.com
Office: +1 (978) 451-0116
Mobile: +1 (603) 494-9886
Mit freundlichen Gr??en ? Avec mes meilleures salutations
They were for video in and out. You could sync the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
Actually, I beleive (confirmed by the VT100 tech manual and schematics)
that you have to sync the external video to the VT100 and not the other
way round. In other words, you take the signal from the Video Out socket,
extract the sync, then use that to sync the video source (camera or whatever)
that you feed into the Video In socket
The only secret was you had to set it for 50Hz .
It works perfectly well with the VT100 set to 60Hz, provided that is the vertical
rate of the external video source.
-tony
12:04 p.m.
I remember joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working
for a small local company called Newbury Labs.
We designed and built what were then called glass teletypes. Twenty
four lines of eighty characters, upwards scrolling only,shift registers
for memory. TTL everything else.
Inside were I think three boards connected by a wiring loom. Edge
connectors what edge connectors?.
Plus a monitor which was about the same performance as a portable TV and
a Cherry Keyboard.
They worked and were a good price.
A guy I knew at DEC (sadly long since passed away) called me and said
DEC were looking for a Sales Engineer to handle volume sales of terminals.
Must know about VDU's printing terminals etc. No sales experience needed
as training would be given.
Within a week I was on the a plane to the US.
As the only terminal guy on the course it was arranged for me to go over
the terminals product line at Marlboro for product training.
I duly turned up and one of the design engineers took me down to a lab
like room.
There set out in a row were a VT100, a VT52 and an LA36.
Out came the inevitable OHP slides (VT100 to begin with) and off he
went. I just about fell off my chair.
A microprocessor (8085?) driven system with every feature you could
imagine.
Very very advanced design, high quality board, pull down four pins and
you could take the top off and get at everything
Plugable keyboard and so on.
All this and loads of expansion opportunities.
Totally awesome. Of course it blew everything away and became the
industry standard.
Even in the then small UK market we sold thousands
Rod Smallwood
On 10/11/15 16:05, Sue Skonetski wrote:
I remember at DEC when we all at VT100?s and then the
big day came when we could upgrade to the ?New Color? monitors Ah just to think of the
orange glow of the words radiating from the screen. Of course you could get green as
well. Not a lot of choice compared to today but ground breaking at the time.
The company I used to work for still makes brand new VT?s since folks like them so much.
VT520 and the DEC style keyboards. Some things never go out of style.
sue
On Nov 10, 2015, at 10:42 AM, tony duell <ard
at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Sue Skonetski
VP of Customer Advocacy
Sue.Skonetski at vmssoftware.com
Office: +1 (978) 451-0116
Mobile: +1 (603) 494-9886
Mit freundlichen Gr??en ? Avec mes meilleures salutations
They were for video in and out. You could sync
the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
Actually, I
beleive (confirmed by the VT100 tech manual and schematics)
that you have to sync the external video to the VT100 and not the other
way round. In other words, you take the signal from the Video Out socket,
extract the sync, then use that to sync the video source (camera or whatever)
that you feed into the Video In socket
The only secret was you had to set it for 50Hz .
It works perfectly well with the VT100 set to 60Hz, provided that is the vertical
rate of the external video source.
-tony
1 p.m.
I remember joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working
for a small local company called Newbury Labs.
When I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University (1985-1988) they were
still using (somewhat later) Newbury terminals on the mainframe. Due to the
metal cases they were often known as 'biscuit tins'.
I rescued one when they were being cleared out, I probably still have it somewhere.
It has a separate keyboard (just an array of switches) and I think has a VT131-like
editing mode (probably totall different commands though). I remember inside there's
a monitor PCB on the back of the upper part of the case and one or two boards
full of logic. Probably a microprocessor in there, and quite a bit of TTL. I remember
some 74181 ALUs (of all things!)
-tony
2:03 p.m.
Now that would be a find.
As it so happens one of the guys who worked with me at NL
lives locally and we are both on the local council so I see him often.
In fact his wife (also councilor) was here yesterday.
As he was still there after I left to join DEC he may know more.
The keyboards some were not cherry.
There was one type that counted through a matrix until it found the
connected crosspoint and stopped the count. The count was your key code.
The early ones were blue and the later ones brown and gray I think.
My wife worked at a local building society and they had some.
One day I showed her a label on the back of hers stating
'Tested OK RVS' (needless to say RVS is me) and a date
before we even met. Coincidences are great.
I'd love to get it running for old times sake.
On 10/11/15 18:00, tony duell wrote:
I remember
joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working
for a small local company called Newbury Labs.
When I was an undergraduate at
Cambridge University (1985-1988) they were
still using (somewhat later) Newbury terminals on the mainframe. Due to the
metal cases they were often known as 'biscuit tins'.
I rescued one when they were being cleared out, I probably still have it somewhere.
It has a separate keyboard (just an array of switches) and I think has a VT131-like
editing mode (probably totall different commands though). I remember inside there's
a monitor PCB on the back of the upper part of the case and one or two boards
full of logic. Probably a microprocessor in there, and quite a bit of TTL. I remember
some 74181 ALUs (of all things!)
-tony 
5:23 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of rod
Sent: 10 November 2015 17:05
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT100 - FUN
I remember joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working for a
small local company called Newbury Labs.
We designed and built what were then called glass teletypes. Twenty four lines
of eighty characters, upwards scrolling only,shift registers for memory. TTL
everything else.
When I was at school I seem to recall that the glass teletypes used by my local
polytechnic on their DECSYSTEM20 were Newbury Labs. They were a great step up from the
Teletype at the time. I didn't see a VT1xx until I got to my M.Sc at Manchester
(1984-1985) where I had a VT125 connected to a 780. I have a VT101 and VT102, but would
love to get a 125 just for old times sake.
Regards
Rob
<snip>
7:53 p.m.
On Nov 10, 2015, at 5:23 PM, Robert Jarratt
<robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
It's interesting that people were building glass TTYs when DEC was well beyond them
with the VT05 by that time or earlier, never mind the VT52.
paul
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of rod
Sent: 10 November 2015 17:05
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT100 - FUN
I remember joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working for a
small local company called Newbury Labs.
We designed and built what were then called glass teletypes. Twenty four lines
of eighty characters, upwards scrolling only,shift registers for memory. TTL
everything else.
When I was at school I seem to recall that the glass teletypes used by my local
polytechnic on their DECSYSTEM20 were Newbury Labs. They were a great step up from the
Teletype at the time. I didn't see a VT1xx until I got to my M.Sc at Manchester
(1984-1985) where I had a VT125 connected to a 780. I have a VT101 and VT102, but would
love to get a 125 just for old times sake.
8:43 p.m.
Hi
I always considered the VT05 to be art or sculpture.
However DEC never produced anything else in the same style.
In the time period we are considering here (1970's) the market (that is
to say the UK)
was for time sharing terminals. You dialed in with your acoustic
coupler and blazed away at 300baud.
Rod Panelman
On 11/11/15 00:53, Paul Koning wrote:
On Nov 10,
2015, at 5:23 PM, Robert Jarratt <robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com> wrote:
It's interesting that people were
building glass TTYs when DEC was well beyond them with the VT05 by that time or earlier,
never mind the VT52.
paul
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of rod
Sent: 10 November 2015 17:05
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: VT100 - FUN
I remember joining DEC in early October 1973. At the time I was working for a
small local company called Newbury Labs.
We designed and built what were then called glass teletypes. Twenty four lines
of eighty characters, upwards scrolling only,shift registers for memory. TTL
everything else.
When I was at school I seem to recall that the glass teletypes used by my local
polytechnic on their DECSYSTEM20 were Newbury Labs. They were a great step up from the
Teletype at the time. I didn't see a VT1xx until I got to my M.Sc at Manchester
(1984-1985) where I had a VT125 connected to a 780. I have a VT101 and VT102, but would
love to get a 125 just for old times sake.
11 Nov
11 Nov
9:54 a.m.
On Nov 10, 2015, at 8:43 PM, rod <rodsmallwood52 at
btinternet.com> wrote:
Hi
I always considered the VT05 to be art or sculpture.
However DEC never produced anything else in the same style.
They did, actually, but it was a rather obscure product: the VT20. That's a local
editing terminal for Typeset-11, for newspaper production. It consisted of two VT05
enclosures connected to an 11/05 controller. The whole thing was connected to the main
system (an 11/45 RSX11-D system) via a serial line.
I never saw one in action but there was one stored in the corner of the Typeset-11
development lab; by the time I got there (1978), it had been superseded by the VT71/t.
Same sort of idea, but a custom enclosure, and the controller was an LSI-11 inside that
enclosure, responsible for just one display rather than two.
The display controller was some sort of display list engine, vaguely like the GT40 but
text only. The host would send the entire file to the terminal, and receive the updated
file in response after the operator finished editing it. Imagine a VTEDIT or Emacs-like
editor, including programmable macro keys ("user defined keys") on your
desktop.
paul
14 Nov
14 Nov
8:09 p.m.
New subject: Boundless terminals (was: VT100 - FUN)
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:05:06AM -0500, Sue Skonetski wrote:
I remember at DEC when we all at VT100?s and then the
big day came
when we could upgrade to the ?New Color? monitors Ah just to think
of the orange glow of the words radiating from the screen. Of
course you could get green as well. Not a lot of choice compared to
today but ground breaking at the time. The company I used to work
for still makes brand new VT?s since folks like them so much. VT520
and the DEC style keyboards. Some things never go out of style.
sue
Intrigued by your comment I went on a web trek - after all, one
doesn't hear about a company selling new terminals nowadays (at least
I don't). Found Boundless Tech, but it seems they are preparing to
quit. They ask that those who may need some docs download it from
their website while it is still on material plane.
http://www.boundlessterminals.com/documentation.html
I have no idea it those are of any value to the group members but I
decided to let you know, just in case.
--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com **
8:31 p.m.
New subject: Boundless terminals
On 11/14/2015 5:09 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:05:06AM -0500, Sue
Skonetski wrote:
Thanks for the heads up. I remember when Boundless first came on the
scene and took over ADDS. Microdata had used ADDS early in their
history, and their Prism terminals were all copies of the Adds 580
protocol, so many Reality customers bought maybe one Prism, and used
ADDS. Later ADDS and other vendors took over.
This documentation page appears to be propery captured on Archive.org,
here is the documentation page, and an example document.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150919155604/http://www.boundlessterminals.co…
https://web.archive.org/web/20151115012631/http://www.boundlessterminals.co…
So when they take the pages offline, if you know boundlessterminals.com
you are good to go too. This message will probably turn up in google
searches for people lookng for info as well.
I wanted to double check that the documents were all backed up.
I looked around and didn't find a 580 manual, either schematics or a
user manual. Any one have a copy?
thanks
Jim
I remember at DEC when we all at VT100?s and then
the big day came
when we could upgrade to the ?New Color? monitors Ah just to think
of the orange glow of the words radiating from the screen. Of
course you could get green as well. Not a lot of choice compared to
today but ground breaking at the time. The company I used to work
for still makes brand new VT?s since folks like them so much. VT520
and the DEC style keyboards. Some things never go out of style.
sue
Intrigued by your comment I went on a web trek - after all, one
doesn't hear about a company selling new terminals nowadays (at least
I don't). Found Boundless Tech, but it seems they are preparing to
quit. They ask that those who may need some docs download it from
their website while it is still on material plane.
http://www.boundlessterminals.com/documentation.html
I have no idea it those are of any value to the group members but I
decided to let you know, just in case.
10 Nov
10 Nov
12:14 p.m.
See my previous email - I did do it that way round-
my memory for detail in the distant past is not as good as it was
Rod
On 10/11/15 15:42, tony duell wrote:
They were for
video in and out. You could sync the VT100 to a feed of
mono video and the overlaid
picture would appear on the screen and at the video out connector.
Actually, I
beleive (confirmed by the VT100 tech manual and schematics)
that you have to sync the external video to the VT100 and not the other
way round. In other words, you take the signal from the Video Out socket,
extract the sync, then use that to sync the video source (camera or whatever)
that you feed into the Video In socket
The only secret was you had to set it for 50Hz .
It works perfectly well with the VT100 set to 60Hz, provided that is the vertical
rate of the external video source.
-tony
3149
days inactive
3154
days old
16 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
jws＠jwsss.com -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
pontus＠Update.UU.SE -
robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com -
rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com -
rtomek＠ceti.pl -
spacewar＠gmail.com -
Sue.Skonetski＠VMSSoftware.com