DEC VT-180 "Robin" system / finding a DEC VT-100 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Dec 2000

From: Michael Passer &lt;mwp(a)acm.org&gt;
...
   I do it all
the time.  The VT180 card can be modded for standalone.
 It requires power, connectors and a simple source of reset.

 Allison 
Cool! I had no idea that's all that was drawn from the VT-100. 

Yes basically the VT100 is used for the terminal and power.

...
 So the keyboard and display talk over the serial bus to
the 180
board as a terminal? 
No bus.  There are 4 serial ports on the VT180 card, one for the VT100
as console and the other three as Printer, AUX and terminal.  The
terminal
port allows setting it as a plalin terminal.

...
 I always thought that the VT-180 board
took over the keyboard and display rather than using the VT-100
as a terminal. 

Thank about that again, it does.  However the Vt180 board allows for a
pass through mode so you can still have a vanilla VT100.

The VT180 only expects the terminal to respond to ESC[5n as that
gives a status (vt100 selftest status) back.  Fake the response and
anything works.

Allison