Classic dumb terminals (was Re: VT-6 kit) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

29 May 2009

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:39 PM, Seth Morabito <sethm at loomcom.com> wrote:
...
  On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
  The cheapest solution at
 the time was to get a real VT52 (about $50 to buy and $30 to ship).
 That's what I did. 
 Oh if only I could find a $50 VT52 in this day and age! :^) 
This was nearly 25 years ago, FWIW (and, yes, I still have it)... the
VT220 was out, and those that bought new, bought that.  Those that
didn't, bought VT100s or some functional clone (CiTOH 101, Wyse-50,
etc).  It was the nadir of the VT52.  Nobody wanted them, nobody
wanted to support them (software or hardware).

It was a function of exactly how old they were - old enough, but not too old.

...
  Actually, I've never seen one for sale in all the
time I've been
 interested in old computers (starting in 1993). ?How common are they
 these days? ?On a scale from "Hen's teeth" to ?"unobtanium"?

Dunno.  I got one in a rescue a few years back, but I haven't tried to
buy one since about 1985 or so.  I don't need lots of them, but the
one I got looks really nice on my Datasystems Desk (the model on the
cover of the 1978/1979 Small Computer Handbook).

-ethan