On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:26 AM, dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
?I still prefer using a laptop and a ternimal
emulator.
It leaves me the option of dumping or uploading files
to disk. Sometimes I just want to log what I've been
doing.
If I'm importing text or trying to completely copy a session, I tend
towards laptops, but I've run into the occasional VT100-emulation
issue with PC-based terminal programs that I've never had using a real
terminal.
As for size, the VT-6 is more portable than a laptop if you have a
keyboard and monitor at your destination. Previously, my Planar
ELT-320 has been great - it's a small (well under 10")
electroluminescent screen (thus the "ELT") that has keyboard jacks for
DEC LK series *and* PC-AT/PS/2 along with MMJ *and* DE-9 serial
connectors. They aren't all that common (I've only ever run across a
few for sale), but great when you can find them.
For me, portability is somewhat important, but compatibility is much
more so. If it doesn't render emacs properly (a real problem I've had
with xterm and klh10) or the VTEDIT TECO Macro on OS/8 (a real problem
I've had with a real DEC VT220 in VT52 mode), the size, the weight or
other factors just aren't important. My solution in each of the above
cases was to use a genuine terminal because when I plugged it in, it
just worked.
?It is a little more difficult as the newer laptops
don't
have serial ports and the os doesn't allow direct access
to the prots.
Indeed. I'm not happy with the shift in what hardware resources are
on "modern" machines, but given that I use a parallel port as 8+ bits
of general-purpose I/O (I don't remember the last time I put a printer
on one ;-), I've come to expect that what I want and what the masses
want only intersect slightly (and that's why I don't have a "new"
laptop).
Still many older laptops will boot a dos disk.
I have a Zenith 8-bit laptop I've posted about before - it cost me $15
with a carrying case, it has two pop-up low-density 3.5" floppies and
no hard drive. I have a boot disk in it with DOS 3.3 and Kermit. I
also have a Xircom PE-3 on its parallel port and the packet drivers,
so I can use DOS Kermit either over the serial port or over a 10BaseT
connection. It's not a fast machine, but it's only doing one thing.
One long-outstanding project is to get some C-sized NiCads with
solder-tabs to rebuild the battery pack, but it works fine on wall
power and I haven't had to do anything but plug it in and boot it up
since I got it.
These days, something like a Dell Latitude CP-series machine is free
or nearly so (but the battery packs are probably dead), and with
64MB-256MB, a built-in serial port, PCMCIA slots, etc., etc., it would
make a fine inexpensive dedicated terminal device. Just watch out for
broken lids (the hinges are stronger than the plastic the case is made
out of).
With "that much" power, you aren't limited to DOS... I still have one
of these running RedHat9 and it does great. The only real limitation
is how much physical memory you can (or can't) stuff in there.
-ethan