Having racked my ancient brain I think the white one might have been a "Burn in test model". DEC used to rate reliability on terminals as "XXXX Hours MTBF YY% Confidence factor". To establish a baseline they would take several hundred terminals and run them noting the failures. What this meant was that if you burned in terminals for XXXX Hours in test then you could estimate the in service MTBF to a confidence level of YY%. This was also used to estimate field service spares requirements. If the actual failure rate differed then they would alter the burn in time on the production testing. As the test models were never intended for sale they never bothered to get them silk screened. What do with a lot of unsaleable VDU's? Answer give them to your employees. Rod Smallwood DEC Terminals Product Line 1973. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ashley Carder Sent: 12 June 2007 14:57 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Cc: wacarder at usit.net Subject: Strange VT50 Decscope A couple of months ago I acquired a strange looking terminal that was said to be a VT50 Decscope. A picture of it can be found on my web site at: http://www.woffordwitch.com/VT50.asp The case looks like it was cast in pieces from a rough mold of a standard VT50. Many of the key caps are not the usual color, and look more like the key caps on the earlier VT05. I have not opened it up and studied the inside yet to see if it has the proper "guts" of a VT50. The previous owner said that he worked for DEC back in the 1970s, and they gave this "VT50" to him to use at home so that he could remotely connect to a system at work. Are there any former DEC employees (or anyone else) here who have ever seen or heard of anything like this? Thanks, Ashley Carder http://www.woffordwitch.com