Vintage terminals (was Re: PDP-11 available in New Zealand) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

8 Mar 2007

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Subject: Re: Vintage terminals (was Re: PDP-11 available in New Zealand)
   From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
   Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:05:00 -0500
     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

On 3/8/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
  David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> 
writes:

  Where can you get real VT52s nowadays?  I
haven't seen one on Ebay for
 at least three years. 
 At the expense of looking stupid (again), why not use one of the many
 VT-100/VT-220-type teminals that also have a VT-52 mode? 
Dunnou about David's needs, but for my own (VTEDIT under OS/8),
emulation within a more modern dumb terminal is rarely accurate
enough.  If you just want approximate emulation, lots of DEC terminals
and DEC-compatible terminals do offer VT-52 emulation, but I've only
tested and rejected the emulation in the VT220.

-ethan 
I use my VT320 and 340 in VT52 mode with no issues.  The VT100 does it 
very well.  Vt220 did bse VT52 but it was a marketing error to not make
it fully compatable, something fixed in later tubes.

The hard reality is the VT52 was so limited that to write an emulation
...
 from scratch is fairly trivial.  Heck I did a PT VDM-1
driver that did  base VT52 (video side) sequences so I could use it with Vedit and
VTedit
(under cp/M and as terminal to PDP8).  The only significant breakage 
was 64 vs 80char lines.

What is hard is a good keyboard emulation of VT100 or VT52 on PCs as 
the keypads really don't match.  

PC terminal emulations are mostly plain broken.

Allison