9 Mar
2017
9 Mar
'17
7 p.m.
I'm trying to return to the computing days of yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS, which are
scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal connected to
the Vax through a serial port, but there doesn't seem to be anything
available to do that. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Doug
10 Mar
10 Mar
10:02 a.m.
On 03/09/2017 09:00 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
I'm trying to return to the computing days of
yesteryear
when people hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a
MicroVax II and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now
I've been using the laptop as a console device and
connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought that the
laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS,
which are scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal
connected to the Vax through a serial port, but there
doesn't seem to be anything available to do that. Does
anyone know of such a thing
Hmmm, seems to me the VCB01 and DecWindows would
emulate a
Tek terminal in the terminal window. I don't think you had
to add any software to make that work.
Also, seems a VT220 or a bunch of other terminals would do
Tek 4010/4012 emulation. Lear Sigler ADM36, GraphOn come to
mind.
Jon
10:09 a.m.
xterm will do your Tek 4014 emulation.
There should be lots of Tek stuff in X11, they were one of the original consortium
members.
While you are fishing around for software to run, I have MOVIE.BYU from one of the guys
here.
ISSCO's DISPLA should be around, but I have not found it.
Look on youtube, there are a bunch of of clips of folks doing just what you are about to
do.
Randy
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Douglas Taylor via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 9, 2017 7:00 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Tektronix Terminal Emulation
I'm trying to return to the computing days of yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS, which are
scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal connected to
the Vax through a serial port, but there doesn't seem to be anything
available to do that. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Doug
11 Mar
11 Mar
8:29 a.m.
I've tried many different things.
xterm does do the TEK emulation. Inside of xterm I can connect to the
Vax with kermit.
seyon is part of Debian and claims to do what I want, but I haven't got
it to work yet. Complaints about 'No profile with UUID or name Seyon
exists'.
Someone else said MS-DOS Kermit will do the emulation. I'm warming up
to that, because there is another DOS program called Conex that runs
under DOS
and will do the emulation of 4014 plus 4105 (you get color!).
The laptop I am using is a DELL Precision M4300, has serial port for
this. I have a floppy drive for it that replaces the DVD drive...
Maybe I'll try that...
Doug
On 3/10/2017 1:09 PM, Randy Dawson wrote:
xterm will do your Tek 4014 emulation.
There should be lots of Tek stuff in X11, they were one of the
original consortium members.
While you are fishing around for software to run, I have MOVIE.BYU
from one of the guys here.
ISSCO's DISPLA should be around, but I have not found it.
Look on youtube, there are a bunch of of clips of folks doing just
what you are about to do.
Randy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Douglas
Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
*Sent:* Thursday, March 9, 2017 7:00 PM
*To:* General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
*Subject:* Tektronix Terminal Emulation
I'm trying to return to the computing days of yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS, which are
scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal connected to
the Vax through a serial port, but there doesn't seem to be anything
available to do that. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Doug
10 Mar
10 Mar
7:31 p.m.
On March 9, 2017 9:00:43 PM CST, Douglas Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at
classiccmp.org> wrote:
I'm trying to return to the computing days of
yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the
laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS, which are
scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal connected to
the Vax through a serial port, but there doesn't seem to be anything
available to do that. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Doug
If you're not wedded to Linux on the laptop, MSDOS Kermit will do pretty good DEC
VT-{many} and TEK4014 emulation and would be "period correct" for use with your
VAX :-)
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
11 Mar
11 Mar
8:14 a.m.
On 3/10/2017 10:31 PM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk wrote:
On March 9, 2017 9:00:43 PM CST, Douglas Taylor via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I like using the laptop as a console because I can log my terminal
session while I'm installing software, etc. Kermit on debian linux
comes without any terminal emulation for some reason. One of the things
that I tried was running kermit inside the xterm window, I was able to
connect to the Vax but was unable to test the graphics portion.
I once had an old laptop that I ran DOS on just to run a PROM
programmer. Wish I still had it.
I'm trying to return to the computing days of
yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the
laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
On the MicroVax I have just started with PGPLOT and MIIPS, which are
scientific plotting packages that run on Vaxes.
I would like to use the laptop to emulate a Tek terminal connected to
the Vax through a serial port, but there doesn't seem to be anything
available to do that. Does anyone know of such a thing?
Doug
If you're not wedded to Linux on the laptop, MSDOS Kermit will do pretty
good DEC VT-{many} and TEK4014 emulation and would be "period correct" for use
with your VAX :-)
Chris 
9:08 a.m.
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 5:14 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I like using the laptop as a console because I can log my terminal session
while I'm installing software, etc. Kermit on debian linux comes without
any terminal emulation for some reason.
In general, kermit under Linux (and other unix-like operating systems)
expect you to start kermit from the terminal emulator of your choice,
and "inherits" whatever terminal emulation you have started it from.
FWIW, I've successfully done vt100 with kermit started from xterm.
One of the things that I tried was
running kermit inside the xterm window, I was able to connect to the Vax but
was unable to test the graphics portion.
Are you sure that your xterm has Tektronix graphics emlation compiled
in / enabled?
I haven't tested graphics emulation yet, because I don't have a
vintage machine that supports it.
HTH
--
Regards,
Torfinn Ingolfsen
9:39 a.m.
On 3/11/2017 12:08 PM, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk wrote:
Yes, xterm on debian linux works fine. I'm
trying to test exactly that,
run programs on a vintage computer that produce graphs on an emulated
terminal.
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 5:14 PM, Douglas Taylor via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
This is one
of the things I will revisit. I'm still trying to compile
programs on the vax that are designed to plot directly to a tek terminal
connected to a serial port. PGPLOT has a very nicely constructed set of
*.com files for VMS but some of the routines are for DECW$. I can't run
DecWindows on a MicroVax II with 11MB of memory, so I loaded the basic
support files for DecWindows. The problem before was that PGPLOT wanted
to link to some of the DECW libraries and use some of the DECW header
files. I hope they are there now. We will see.
I like using the laptop as a console because I
can log my terminal session
while I'm installing software, etc. Kermit on debian linux comes without
any terminal emulation for some reason.
In general, kermit under Linux (and other
unix-like operating systems)
expect you to start kermit from the terminal emulator of your choice,
and "inherits" whatever terminal emulation you have started it from.
FWIW, I've successfully done vt100 with kermit started from xterm. One of the things that I tried was
running kermit inside the xterm window, I was able to connect to the Vax but
was unable to test the graphics portion.
Are you sure that your xterm has
Tektronix graphics emlation compiled
in / enabled?
I haven't tested graphics emulation yet, because I don't have a
vintage machine that supports it. HTH
9:47 a.m.
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 10:39 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 3/11/2017 12:08 PM, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk
wrote:
On the VAXstation II that I ran in college for one of the departments
we would do TEK plots all the time. The programs that did them would
send an escape sequence that would kick the normally VT100-ish
terminal emulator on screen into Tektronics 401x emulation and then
send the sequence of tektronics escape sequences to do the plot. We'd
then take a screen shot of the plot if we needed to print it quickly
(but at low quality) on the laser printer, or we'd fire up the
Tektronics Plotter and redirect the output there if we were doing
photo-ready for a conference or paper. This was all on VMS 5.4 running
DISSPLA... We did have 16MB of memory, though....
Warner
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 5:14 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
This is one of the things I will revisit. I'm still trying to compile
programs on the vax that are designed to plot directly to a tek terminal
connected to a serial port. PGPLOT has a very nicely constructed set of
*.com files for VMS but some of the routines are for DECW$. I can't run
DecWindows on a MicroVax II with 11MB of memory, so I loaded the basic
support files for DecWindows. The problem before was that PGPLOT wanted to
link to some of the DECW libraries and use some of the DECW header files. I
hope they are there now. We will see.
I like using the laptop as a console because I can log my terminal
session
while I'm installing software, etc. Kermit on debian linux comes without
any terminal emulation for some reason.
In general, kermit under Linux (and other unix-like operating systems)
expect you to start kermit from the terminal emulator of your choice,
and "inherits" whatever terminal emulation you have started it from.
FWIW, I've successfully done vt100 with kermit started from xterm. 
1:11 p.m.
I can't run DecWindows on a MicroVax II with 11MB of memory, so I loaded
the basic support files for DecWindows.
Are you sure?
I can run the old XUI DecWindows on VMS 5.5-2 (the newest VMS that will support
XUI) in monochrome on a VaxStation 2000 with just 6MB. It's not very fast
but it works. As far as I recall, it worked in colour when it had a GPX card
installed.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan
5:19 p.m.
On 3/11/2017 4:11 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
You know, I don't actually know...
I have run DecWindows from a microVax 4000-400 with ~350MB of memory. I
assumed that the burden would be too much for the smaller Vax.
I can't run DecWindows on a MicroVax II with 11MB of memory, so I
loaded
the basic support files for DecWindows.
Are you sure?
I can run the old XUI DecWindows on VMS 5.5-2 (the newest VMS that
will support
XUI) in monochrome on a VaxStation 2000 with just 6MB. It's not very
fast
but it works. As far as I recall, it worked in colour when it had a
GPX card
installed.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan
6:21 p.m.
On 03/11/2017 07:19 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
On 3/11/2017 4:11 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
You know, I don't actually know...
I have run DecWindows from a microVax 4000-400 with ~350MB
of memory. I assumed that the burden would be too much
for the smaller Vax.
I ran DecWindows on a MicroVAX-II with probably 1 MB of
memory. That may have been a bit weak, I did upgrade the
system to 5 MB. It ran fine. First with a VCB-01
(monochrome) and then updated to a VCB-02 (8-bit color).
Jon
I can't run DecWindows on a MicroVax II with 11MB of
memory, so I loaded
the basic support files for DecWindows.
Are you sure?
I can run the old XUI DecWindows on VMS 5.5-2 (the newest
VMS that will support
XUI) in monochrome on a VaxStation 2000 with just 6MB.
It's not very fast
but it works. As far as I recall, it worked in colour
when it had a GPX card
installed.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan
2:41 p.m.
I'm trying to return to the computing days of yesteryear when people
hooked graphics terminals to VAXes.
I don't have a Tektronix graphics terminal but I do have a MicroVax II
and a laptop running Debian Linux. Up to now I've been using the laptop
as a console device and connecting to the Vax using minicom. I thought
that the laptop would be a natural as a Tektronix type terminal.
I would suggest using a terminal port other than the console port on the VAX
to display graphics (and especially for file transfer). I'm not sure about
the MicroVax II but on some other VAX and Alpha machines, the console port
may be less capable than ordinary terminal ports in the way of buffering,
flow control, 8 bit support and so on.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.
5:10 p.m.
I'm not sure about the MicroVax II but on some
other VAX and Alpha
machines, the console port may be less capable than ordinary terminal
ports in the way of buffering, flow control, 8 bit support and so on.
The KA630, the MicroVAX-II CPU board (which includes the console serial
port), has a relatively limited serial port. For example, it has only
a byte or two of buffering in each direction, it cannot be used
directly from userland even if the kernel wants to let it (it is
accessed with MFPR and MTPR instructions), it has no software baudrate
control, and various other limitations.
These have concomitant benefits for console use, such as no software
setup being required to get small numbers of characters transferred.
But they do rather cripple it for voluminous data transfer. If you
have an at-least-mildly-smart serial port card (eg, with substantial
hardware buffering capability, and/or with DMA capability), you will
probably get better performance with it.
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8:50 p.m.
On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 6:10 PM, Mouse via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It was 8-bit clean. And did allow for connection of a printer to it,
though a relatively simple one. We wound up in the end, though, not
using it except in a pinch. The limitations were just a bit too much
to give reliable behavior for anything other than having a DECwriter
II or VT220 connected to it.
We had a 4-port serial card to connect the plotter, and a few other
specialty devices we needed for our VaxStation II (which had the same
KA630 CPU board and a graphics board).
Warner
I'm not
sure about the MicroVax II but on some other VAX and Alpha
machines, the console port may be less capable than ordinary terminal
ports in the way of buffering, flow control, 8 bit support and so on.
The KA630, the MicroVAX-II CPU board (which includes the console serial
port), has a relatively limited serial port. For example, it has only
a byte or two of buffering in each direction, it cannot be used
directly from userland even if the kernel wants to let it (it is
accessed with MFPR and MTPR instructions), it has no software baudrate
control, and various other limitations.
These have concomitant benefits for console use, such as no software
setup being required to get small numbers of characters transferred.
But they do rather cripple it for voluminous data transfer. If you
have an at-least-mildly-smart serial port card (eg, with substantial
hardware buffering capability, and/or with DMA capability), you will
probably get better performance with it.
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