In message "VC404 The Standard",
lwalker(a)mail.interlog.com writes:
One of my recent curbside finds is a machine put
out by a Canadian company
based in Waterloo Ont called Volker-Craig model vg-400. On the front it has a
title VC404 The Standard.
I also have a 404, discarded from a university lab many years ago.
These terminals seem to have been popular in university student
terminal rooms because they were relatively cheap. I seem to recall
that the company founders were ex-University of Waterloo people.
I've seen 404s not just in Canada but also in Britain, where they were
the standard terminals on a university Vax system I once used. So I'm
not too surprised Tony has a tech manual. (Actually, I wouldn't be
surprised if Tony had a tech manual for Noah's Ark :)
Ain't it the truth . : ^ )) And likely the only person in the world with
it's
actual dimensions ! In cubits !
It has a k-b
attached with ribbon cable
Unfortunately the keyboards were not that robust and after a few
generations of students pounding away on them, the keyboard or the
ribbon cable often became unreliable.
Yeah, I chopped the cable to get rid of a length of frayed edge but it's
still
repeating keys. Hopefully when I replace the cable it will be stabile.
In the back it
has a 25 pin RS232 connector, a BNC labelled "composite video" ,2 switches :
one 3-pos.to configure parity the other "Transparent on off"
That video connector on the back was useful for hooking into a big
classroom overhead monitor so a whole class could learn from observing a
terminal session.
That one really baffled me. I wonder if there were other uses or was it
designed for educational purposes ?
These terminals are very helpful for debugging RS-232
communications.
The "transparent" switch on the back lets you choose to display all the
ASCII control codes (eg, instead of performing a "line feed" it displays
a little LF symbol).
It gets more interesting all the time. I ran across a program on Jeff
Armstrongs Rainbow 100 page (he maintains a RB FAQ) that allows
you to use a terminal hooked up to a Windoze box to access the Inet.
It's called STERM but needless to say I haven't tried it yet. Sounds like
there might be a lot of uses for this box.
Larry, I don't have any tech docs but I do have a
thin user manual.
About all it tells you is what the special control codes are to clear
the screen, move the cursor, etc. Still, it's the information you need
to run Wordstar with it! E-mail me with your snail-mail address
and I'll run off a copy for you.
Regards,
Arlen
--
Arlen Michaels
Nortel
Ottawa, Canada (613) 763-2568 amichael(a)nortel.ca
That would be great ! Will do.
ciao larry
lwalker(a)interlog.com