Beware. Everything we consider as a classic terminal is either extremely rare today, or a historical anomaly (EG the town library card system that hasn't been upgraded in 15 years). Don't rest if you want one. Aside: Book cover image on Amazon http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0674022033.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V55737222_.jpg "Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America" by Giles Slade about a hundred computer monitors shown in a dumpster John A.

Yes, that's what was just said, Hmmm...

Richard wrote: Wyse bought Link nearly twenty years ago. -- Paul

Richard wrote: Boundless and TeleVideo are still in business, though TeleVideo has just filed for Chapter 11 protection. -- Paul

At 6:01 PM -0600 5/4/06, Richard wrote: I'm pretty sure it was DEC, if it wasn't DEC, then they got the DEC terminal line from Compaq. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On 5/5/06, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: I've got a Link terminal here - we use them for talking to these multi-channel high-voltage generator boxes (like a LeCroy 1458). We also have a few DEC terminals in sad shape due to their age (cracked cases, tubes with burn-in, etc.) Two years ago, I had to rescue two NiB Link terminals from going to Waste. I've used both of them several times a year since then... a good save. But I'd agree - there's nothing spectacular about them... Given the choice, I'd probably rather have a "modern" DEC terminal. -ethan

Richard wrote: There's the Sun Ray series. It's a bit more than an X-terminal, but it's the same kind of idea. I have two DEC VT340's I use *constantly*. Peace... Sridhar

In article <445B93B6.3070903 at srv.net>, Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net> writes: But this is what makes them interesting as a collector. PCs w/linux and X11 are very ho-hum from the viewpoint of a collector of vintage gear. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

I do. In some respects, at least. Terminals are smaller. They are quieter. They suck less power. They generate less heat. They boot a *hell* of a lot faster - most terminals are functioning before even aimed-at-embedded SBCs have more than barely started POST, never mind booted. They're less expensive. Of course, there are other respects in which terminals fall short. Most of them can be summarized as "they're less flexible" - for exmaple, you can't capture output into a file, you can't copy a file into the input stream, you have limited (in some cases *very* limited) local editing capability.... But then, sometimes I'll use my Swiss army knife - and sometimes I'll reach for a real screwdriver. Terminals have a place in my ideal world, even though computers running terminal emulators do too. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

In article <200605041711450053.0C06A9F8 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes: Yep. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8008> "The Intel 8008 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and introduced in April, 1972. The 8008, originally codenamed 1201, was originally commissioned by Computer Terminal Corporation for use in its Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal, but because the chip was delivered late and did not meet CTC's performance goals, the chip was not used in the 2200. An agreement between Intel and CTC permitted Intel to market the chip to other customers." So not only were terminals quick to turn to microprocessors over SSI/MSI logic (hell, who wouldn't?), but microprocessors themselves owe some of their legacy to terminals. Sure, but there was a period when the quality of text and graphics displayed on terminals exceeded that displayed on PCs. The HP2621 has a font that is extremely easy on the eyes. PC font rendering in text mode wouldn't catch up for a long time and there's even some question of whether or not the font rendering in GDI is comparable in quality. Depending on the terminal, you could say that the PC didn't catch up to all the architectural features of terminals until the graphics cards with HW transformation and lighting appeared. And that wasn't too long ago -- 2000? But that's a little unfair as most terminals were geared towards text applications and not graphics applications. Graphics terminals are a very interesting breed. They flourished in the window of opportunity between the wave of minicomputers and the wave of workstations. A minicomputer and a graphics terminal (i.e. PDP-11/03 + Tektronix 4010) was some pretty hot shit for a small organization in 1975. By the time 1986 rolls around, that same organization would probably be buying a workstation to do the equivalent work. All my cctalk messages have been composed in vi through a *nix shell session connected to my PC via a telnet session in CRT v2.2 from <http://www.vandyke.com>. In a day-to-day sense, although I still use character-based applications on a daily basis (email and usenet), they're all used via a terminal program running on my local PC. Copy and paste into serial sessions is a dogsend :-). I only miss terminals in a nostalgic sense. They were the "face of the computer" when I learned programming in 1978 at the University of Delaware (I wasn't a student there yet; I was 13). I started on the LA-36, then moved to the CRTs made by Beehive and occasionally used a VT-52, VT-100 or HP2648A. When I needed "letter quality" printing for my high school English class, I used the IBM 2741 to print out my output from RSTS/E's RUNOFF. I got into graphics after using the Tektronix 4010. If it weren't for the 4010, I'd probably be something like a chemist or chemical engineer now, I don't know if I would have stayed with software. By the time I was a student at udel.edu in 1982, they had switched to Zenith Z-29s and HP 2621s as their terminal of choice. Terminals with attached Epson FX-80 era/style printers were available for hardcopy, or you could submit it to a laser line printer. By the time I graduated in 1986, they were just starting to transition to workstations for their student computing labs (research offices already had them or PCs). When I got to utah.edu in 1988, the CS department had facilities that were almost exclusively workstations (mostly HP9000/680x0 workstations with a utah.edu port of bsd; Robert Kessler had gotten a $5 million equipment grant from HP). The public computing labs had PCs and Macs. There were still some Teleray 10s around the department in graduate student offices for doing work when the workstations were busy. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

Unfortunately early Beehive terminals were highly valued by scrappers for the metals. this is one of the reasons they are so rare. My scrapper friend went out of his way to find aluminum backed Beehives as their cards were good gold also. Early Beehives are quite rare and worth keeping. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

Tony Duell wrote: Best VT100 emulators I've used so far has been kermit95 (for Windows), and xterm (for *nix). The terminal program that comes with windows (hyperterm) is one of the worst. Gnome terminal is also fairly lousy, but still better than hyperterm.

On Thursday 04 May 2006 06:22 pm, Richard wrote: Having worked at a place where terminals were replaced by PCs with NT installed I can only say that it was extremely annoying to work with, in that environment, though it did give me the ability to have more than one "terminal" open at a time, as well as a few other applications. That aside, the batch of stuff that I mentioned in here recently was just such a case -- the equipment was replaced with PCs and kept as a backup, and then they got a second set of PCs as a backup, so... I should know more about this stuff over the weekend. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

In message <200605041601.42935.rtellason at blazenet.net> "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote: If it's a standard fan, it's probably better (in terms of time spent on repairs) to swap it for a brand new fan. The old one is no doubt full of dust, dirt and other gunk - re-lubricating it might help for now, but the dirt's still going to be rubbing at the bearing surfaces... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G

On 5/27/2006 at 11:28 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: If it's a cheap east Asian peecee PSU or chip cooling fan, just peel back the paper seal on the hub and drop a glob of grease in there and then put the seal back. These fans aren't worth the trouble of reclaiming them and most of the time, the aforementioned fix works--at least for another year or two. Cheers, Chuck

Indeed I am. I am not going to waste my time repairing, or indeed owning, the cr*p that pretends to be a fan these days... it is certainly worth being able to repair fans in case you come across unusuale ones. The fans in the HP9121/9122 drive units would be difficult to replace, for example. And I once did a repair on some SGI machine that had a large fan in the bottom of the case. A replacement would doubtless have been a lot more expensive than a couple of ball races (which is what I needed to get it going again). For old machines with standard fans (e.g. 120mm ones), it's debatable if it's worth repairing them. I feel it is if the repair can be done reasonably easily, since it keeps more of the origianl parts in the machine. That raises an interesting point, actually. If the normal repair method when the machine was in active use was to replace a module (e.g. board-swap), is it better (historically) to keep the machine as original as possible (by replacing just one component on the board), or to keep the original repair methods? I know what I'm going to do, though. -tony