4 Oct
2013
4 Oct
'13
11:02 a.m.
From the VC forum:
I have several old terminals that have been wrapped in plastic for the last
3 decades or so that I'd like to give away: (a) DEC VT-131 (b) DEC VT-241,
and (c) a Wyse 350. All three have keyboards and original manuals, and all
were in excellent shape when I put them away. I live in Moreno Valley, CA,
and I would prefer to have someone pick up whatever they want if possible.
If anyone is interested I'm willing to plug any or all in to make sure they
still power up and take them to UPS, but boxing and shipping is on you. I
don't know if this is the right place to list these, but I thought I'd try
to see if anyone wanted them before I just recycled them. Seemed a shame to
just scrap them, but I need the space.
(No email addy; PM on VCF if interested).
m
4 Oct
4 Oct
11:40 a.m.
On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 11:02 AM, MikeS <dm561 at torfree.net> wrote:
From the VC forum:
I have several old terminals that have been wrapped in plastic for the last
3 decades or so that I'd like to give away: (a) DEC VT-131 (b) DEC VT-241,
and (c) a Wyse 350
Nice graphic terminals. I'm far away and already have a VT-241,
but hopefully someone grabs them.
BTW, the two things I've found that if you have a "broken VT-240", the
most likely items that need replacing are the 9636/9637 EIA
interface chips (they aren't the more common 1488/1489), and
the power switch. Fortunately, the hole for the switch is an ordinary
size, so functional, not cosmetic, replacements are easy to come
by.
-ethan
12:23 p.m.
On Fri, 4 Oct 2013, MikeS wrote:
From the VC forum:
I have several old terminals that have been wrapped in plastic for the last 3
decades or so that I'd like to give away: (a) DEC VT-131 (b) DEC VT-241, and
(c) a Wyse 350. All three have keyboards and original manuals, and all were
in excellent shape when I put them away. I live in Moreno Valley, CA, and I
would prefer to have someone pick up whatever they want if possible. If
anyone is interested I'm willing to plug any or all in to make sure they
still power up and take them to UPS, but boxing and shipping is on you. I
don't know if this is the right place to list these, but I thought I'd try to
see if anyone wanted them before I just recycled them. Seemed a shame to just
scrap them, but I need the space.
(No email addy; PM on VCF if interested).
m
Hmmm. How much would boxing and shipping on these be I wonder.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
12:59 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 12:23 PM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
The VT100 has an official weight of 41 lbs, so I imagine the VT131 is
similar. Packing and shipping a terminal so that it survives is a non-
trivial process. I just shipped a 17 lb MakerBot to Alaska, and it took
$30 in packing materials - double box, bubble wrap around the item
in the inner box, peanuts between the boxes. It arrived intact but was
not easy to pack. Additionally, because of the size of the box (19" x
19" x 25", a nominal 18x18x24, but that's the inside dimensions and
the thickness of the box is enough to trigger rounding up), it was billed
by UPS as the dimensional weight - it was billed _as if_ it were a 49 lb
package, not the 19 lbs it really was.
Take the measurements of the item, add *at least* 4" on all sides for
enough packing material (6" is better with a double box), and see how
that scales up... The VT100 is 14.5"x18"14.25" (monitor), 3.5"x
18"x8" (keyboard), according to the first link I found. That means
that you are looking for a box no smaller than 18" x 24" x 18", and
that's a bit on the low side and requires sending the keyboard in
its own box (very possibly the cheaper way to go given dimensional
shipping surcharges).
So the short answer is "a lot".
The longer answer is a 43 lb package of 19" x 19" x 25" (using
that same 18x18x24 box and rounding up as they do) shipped
(a) DEC VT-131
(b) DEC VT-241, and (c) a Wyse 350
Hmmm. How much would boxing and shipping on these be I wonder. from CA to OH is $80 ground, $250 2nd day, and over
$350 next
day, due to dimensional weight. Add at least $20 in box and
packing materials, and don't forget the the keyboard is another
package, albeit cheaper, so... well over $100.
Not that long ago, it would have been half that, but here we are.
-ethan
1:21 p.m.
On Oct 4, 2013, at 09:59 , Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
The VT100 has an official weight of 41 lbs, so I
imagine the VT131 is
similar. Packing and shipping a terminal so that it survives is a non-
trivial process.
Once I shipped a USSR Fialka cipher machine ($3000+ of nearly irreplaceable, fragile
electromechanical equipment) cross-country to return it to a guy I fixed it for. He
didn't pack it too well, and it arrived in a non-rectangular box and with a dented
lid. I wasn't about to let that happen on the return trip, so I procured a wooden
crate and convoluted foam from U-Line to pack it for its return trip. Those cost around
$120, not even including shipping. But for heavy, valuable, fragile items like old radios,
computers, crypto gear, etc., that kind of overkill is pretty much necessary.
Other good options include foam-in-place, double-boxing, lots of bubble wrap, etc.
Sometimes, things like knobs need to be removed, switches need to be very carefully
protected, etc. The worst thing to do is to toss something in a used cardboard box with
some styrofoam peanuts. All too often, the box will arrive spherical instead of
rectangular, with peanuts and pieces of the smashed contents leaking out the corners.
Unfortunately, properly packing many items costs more than the item is worth, so
that's why this sort of stuff is often given away for free or thrown away when the
owner knows the item isn't worth the effort and expense of packing it for shipment.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
2:19 p.m.
On 10/4/2013 11:21 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
Unfortunately, properly packing many items costs more
than the item
is worth, so that's why this sort of stuff is often given away for
free or thrown away when the owner knows the item isn't worth the
effort and expense of packing it for shipment.
Worth is NOT price. If you NEED that terminal good shipping is part
of the price of the product. The old saying still applies, you get
what you pay for. Ben.
PS. Here in CANADA -- EXPENSIVE SHIPPING IS THE ONLY OPTION.
2:49 p.m.
On Oct 4, 2013, at 11:19 , ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
Worth is NOT price. If you NEED that terminal good
shipping is part
of the price of the product. The old saying still applies, you get
what you pay for. Ben.
Very true! I once spent $5500 shipping a $6500 truck from Maryland to southern California.
It was a REALLY nice truck... ;)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
7 Oct
7 Oct
7:46 a.m.
fre 2013-10-04 klockan 10:21 -0700 skrev Mark J. Blair:
On Oct 4, 2013, at 09:59 , Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks
at gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder:
the glass works used to ship drinking glasses in wooden barrels packed
with wood wool.
Has anyone tried to use a second hand modern plastic barrel with a
removable lid and packed with sawdust or wool ?
The VT100 has an official weight of 41 lbs, so I
imagine the VT131 is
similar. Packing and shipping a terminal so that it survives is a non-
trivial process.
Once I shipped a USSR Fialka cipher machine ($3000+ of nearly irreplaceable, fragile
electromechanical equipment) cross-country to return it to a guy I fixed it for. He
didn't pack it too well, and it arrived in a non-rectangular box and with a dented
lid. I wasn't about to let that happen on the return trip, so I procured a wooden
crate and convoluted foam from U-Line to pack it for its return trip. Those cost around
$120, not even including shipping. But for heavy, valuable, fragile items like old radios,
computers, crypto gear, etc., that kind of overkill is pretty much necessary.
Other good options include foam-in-place, double-boxing, lots of bubble wrap, etc.
Sometimes, things like knobs need to be removed, switches need to be very carefully
protected, etc. The worst thing to do is to toss something in a used cardboard box with
some styrofoam peanuts. All too often, the box will arrive spherical instead of
rectangular, with peanuts and pieces of the smashed contents leaking out the corners.
Unfortunately, properly packing many items costs more than the item is worth, so
that's why this sort of stuff is often given away for free or thrown away when the
owner knows the item isn't worth the effort and expense of packing it for shipment.
10:10 a.m.
On Oct 7, 2013, at 7:46 AM, "Stefan Skoglund (H?gskolan i Sk?vde)" <a13stesk
at student.his.se> wrote:
fre 2013-10-04 klockan 10:21 -0700 skrev Mark J.
Blair:
> ...
> Other good options include foam-in-place, double-boxing, lots of bubble wrap, etc.
Sometimes, things like knobs need to be removed, switches need to be very carefully
protected, etc. The worst thing to do is to toss something in a used cardboard box with
some styrofoam peanuts. All too often, the box will arrive spherical instead of
rectangular, with peanuts and pieces of the smashed contents leaking out the corners.
I once had an RP06 pack shipped to me, which arrived in a large cardboard box filled with
styrofoam peanuts. The pack had sunk to the bottom corner (pushing all the peanuts out of
the way) and had one platter bent up about half an inch.
...
I wonder:
the glass works used to ship drinking glasses in wooden barrels packed
with wood wool.
Has anyone tried to use a second hand modern plastic barrel with a
removable lid and packed with sawdust or wool ?
Wood wool ("excelsior" is what that was called), sure. Sawdust would be a bad
idea. It will make a mess, it isn't very springy, and it will shift out of the way
just like the peanuts in my RP06 example. You need materials that will stay where you put
them.
I once saw an extreme example of packaging, for a Dewar vessel (large glass object)
shipped to the university physics lab. It came in a large wooden crate, with the Dewar
flask suspended in the center of that crate by eight springs, one from each corner of the
crate. Very impressive. I suspect you could have dropped that out of the truck and not
suffered damage.
paul
10:35 a.m.
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 10:10 AM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
I once had an RP06 pack shipped to me, which arrived
in a large cardboard
box filled with styrofoam peanuts. The pack had sunk to the bottom corner
(pushing all the peanuts out of the way) and had one platter bent up about half an inch.
Sad but not surprising, given the packing "job".
Sawdust would be a bad idea. It will make a mess, it
isn't very springy, and it
will shift out of the way just like the peanuts in my RP06 example.
Yep. It "flows" too well.
You need materials that will stay where you put them.
This is part of the reason for double-boxing items - even packing around the
inner box can't migrate around as it would if it were loose packing around
an irregular object. Density and footprint are another part of the equation.
A bare VT-100 surrounded by 5" of peanuts will compress the ones on the
bottom as the box is handled. The compression leaves a void that is filled
by peanuts creeping up the sides, turning the whole carton into a "peanut
pump", leaving the terminal in the corner of the box and all the peanuts on
top, like your RP06 pack. One benefit of the double box is to increase the
footprint and spread the load over more peanuts, lowering the amount of
compression. The other benefit is that it's easier to tell that you need to
toss some more in on top to have some compression of the top layer,
reducing the void and lowering the pumping action. I have no idea what
the critical pounds-per-square-inch number is for peanuts, but there is
a number, and things with CRTs and linear power supplies routinely
exceed it, necessitating additional measures (foam corners, mixed
packing media, etc).
I was once told by someone who worked at UPS that you should pack
your boxes as if you were going to toss them out of a car moving 30 mph.
They have a conveyor in the depot that moves that fast and is 4' off the
ground. Stuff falls off of it every day.
-ethan
2:22 p.m.
BTW, I picked up the terminals on Saturday, and they're in the back of my truck now. I
plan to keep one of them; either the VT-241 or VT-131, and I'm still thinking that
over. The other two will probably be trade fodder towards acquiring other vintage
computing stuff, so they will hopefully find new homes before too long. I haven't
gotten around to powering them up yet, but they do all look very nice.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3:24 p.m.
On Oct 7, 2013, at 2:22 PM, "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
BTW, I picked up the terminals on Saturday, and
they're in the back of my truck now. I plan to keep one of them; either the VT-241 or
VT-131, and I'm still thinking that over. The other two will probably be trade fodder
towards acquiring other vintage computing stuff, so they will hopefully find new homes
before too long. I haven't gotten around to powering them up yet, but they do all look
very nice.
I think the VT241 is a pretty neat device. The VR241 is noisy, if
you can still hear 15 KHz (like I can), but it's a lovely display.
Note: don't be too alarmed if the top few lines look a little ragged
when you turn it on until it's gotten good sync; that alarmed me at
first, but it was fine once it acquired a signal.
- Dave
8 Oct
8 Oct
2:43 p.m.
I think the VT241 is a pretty neat device. The VR241
is noisy, if
you can still hear 15 KHz (like I can), but it's a lovely display.
I've head the VR241 called a lot of things, most of which are not
repeatable here.
It's a Hitachi chassis, and uses similar circuity to their TV sets of the
same period. In particular, the vertical deflection circuitry (and IIRC
the horixzotnal oscillator) are on a thick-flim hybrid circuit in the
middle of the deflection PCB. This is not identtical to the ones used in
TVs (at least not UK TVs), so they will not do as spares. Some faults can
be fixed, but sometimes you have to kludge things rather more than I like
Secondly, the PSU is odd. It is driven by the horizontal deflection
oscillator, there's am extra winding o nthe flyback transformer that is
actually conencted ot the mains side of the PSU circuity (so
technically the flyback transformer bridges the isoaltion barrier). Of
course the horizontal oscillator only runs once the PSU has got going, so
there's a startup multivibrator on the PSU board that is disabled when a
capacitor has charged.
Therefore, for the PUS to start up and keep running not only must all the
components on the PSU be good, but aloo that thich-film module, the
horizontal outptu transistor, the flyback, etc. In other words just about
all the parts that normally cause problesm. So fualt tracing is a lot
harder than on some other monitors.
-tony
4:23 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2013, at 2:43 PM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I should clarify that by "lovely", I meant that it produced a nice,
vivid color output during the brief time I looked at it. I haven't
had to deal with it on a deep technical level, and I'm sure it has
plenty of warts there.
- Dave
I think the
VT241 is a pretty neat device. The VR241 is noisy, if
you can still hear 15 KHz (like I can), but it's a lovely display.
I've head the VR241 called a lot of things, most of which are not
repeatable here.
9 Oct
9 Oct
4:06 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2013, at 2:43 PM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I should clarify that by "lovely", I meant that it produced a nice,
vivid color output during the brief time I looked at it. I haven't
Yes, a good quailty CT, correctly set up, does produce a very good
display. Better than most cheap LCD monitors. Although I will admit taht
a good LCD monitor can also produce a clear, contrasty [1] display
[1] This, IMHO, is where a lot of cheap LCD monitors fall down. 'Black'
is not dark enough.
I think
the VT241 is a pretty neat device. The VR241 is noisy, if
you can still hear 15 KHz (like I can), but it's a lovely display.
I've head the VR241 called a lot of things, most of which are not
repeatable here. had to deal with it on a deep technical level, and
I'm sure it has
plenty of warts there.
I did have to fix mine (which came with a Raninbow, but of course it's
the same unit). Fortunately it was jsut a problem with one of the video
amplifiers so I had 2 good channels to comapare against, and I didn't
ahve to bother with either the thick-0film circuit in the deflection
system or that rather odd PSU.
-tony
10:56 a.m.
On Tuesday (10/08/2013 at 07:43PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote:
If the VR241 is a loss, I have successfully adapted a modern VGA LCD to
a VT240 terminal using a simple sync seperator circuit ahead of a scan
converter board intended for arcade game restoration.
You need one of these,
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cga-ega-yuv-to-vga-arcade-hd-converter-pcb…
and one of these,
http://www.ti.com/tool/lmh1980mmeval
The solution plugs into the DB15 on the back of the VT240, where the VR241
would normally connect, so there are no modifications to the VT240 itself.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
I think the
VT241 is a pretty neat device. The VR241 is noisy, if
you can still hear 15 KHz (like I can), but it's a lovely display.
I've head the VR241 called a lot of things, most of which are not
repeatable here. 
10 Oct
10 Oct
5:43 p.m.
In article <20131009145643.GB7248 at n0jcf.net>,
Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com> writes:
If the VR241 is a loss, I have successfully adapted a
modern VGA LCD to
a VT240 terminal using a simple sync seperator circuit ahead of a scan
converter board intended for arcade game restoration.
You need one of these,
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cga-ega-yuv-to-vga-arcade-hd-converter-pcb…
bs-8220-gbs-8220.html
and one of these,
http://www.ti.com/tool/lmh1980mmeval
Why do you need the latter?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
11 Oct
11 Oct
8:58 a.m.
On Thursday (10/10/2013 at 03:43PM -0600), Richard wrote:
In article <20131009145643.GB7248 at n0jcf.net>,
Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com> writes:
Because the Jammaboard only accepts specific H and V sync configurations
depending on scan rate. We want what it thinks is CGA mode and in that
mode it will only accept seperate H and V sync. The VT240 generates
SYNC ON GREEN and so I use the lmh1980 to extract all syncs from the
green and provide them on seperate wires going into the Jamma board.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
If the VR241 is a loss, I have successfully
adapted a modern VGA LCD to
a VT240 terminal using a simple sync seperator circuit ahead of a scan
converter board intended for arcade game restoration.
You need one of these,
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cga-ega-yuv-to-vga-arcade-hd-converter-pcb…
bs-8220-gbs-8220.html
and one of these,
http://www.ti.com/tool/lmh1980mmeval
Why do you need the latter?
4:24 p.m.
In article <20131009145643.GB7248 at n0jcf.net>,
Chris Elmquist <chrise at pobox.com> writes:
The colour video output from the VT240 unit (VS240) is analogue RGB with
sync-on-green. The VR241 monitor has a switch to select between separate
sync and sync-on-green -- from memory it simply swithces the input of
the sync separate between the seprate sync input and the green video input.
Anyway, I think the board refered to is a sync separator. Anything
designed to conenct ot a PC video output (like the first device mentioned
above) is likely to need separate syncs
BUT...
Having followed the second URL above, it appears that evaluation board is
not cheap. A TV-rate sync separator is pretty easy to make usign the
LM1881 or its successors. Personally,. I'd jsut buy the chip and wire up
the few passive components needed. It woudl take a few minutes at most.
-tony
If the VR241 is a loss, I have successfully
adapted a modern VGA LCD to
a VT240 terminal using a simple sync seperator circuit ahead of a scan
converter board intended for arcade game restoration.
You need one of these,
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cga-ega-yuv-to-vga-arcade-hd-converter-pcb…
bs-8220-gbs-8220.html
and one of these,
http://www.ti.com/tool/lmh1980mmeval
Why do you need the latter?
12 Oct
12 Oct
10:40 a.m.
On Friday (10/11/2013 at 09:24PM +0100), Tony Duell wrote:
Having followed the second URL above, it appears that evaluation board is
not cheap. A TV-rate sync separator is pretty easy to make usign the
LM1881 or its successors. Personally,. I'd jsut buy the chip and wire up
the few passive components needed. It woudl take a few minutes at most.
Right. Which is exactly what I did. I just bought the part and an
SMT to SIP adapter and built it on Vector board. I referred to the
eval kit so that folks who don't want to do that level of circuit work,
with an SMT part, can just hook up to the eval card.
My mistake for implying that the eval card was neccessary.
The LMH1980 is the successor to the LM1881.
The seperate sync signals are available inside the VT240 too, so if
someone were to modify the terminal and bring those signals out some
other way, the sync seperator would not be needed.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
8 Oct
8 Oct
8:11 p.m.
On 7 October 2013 14:22, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
BTW, I picked up the terminals on Saturday, and
they're in the back of my truck now. I plan to keep one of them; either the VT-241 or
VT-131, and I'm still thinking that over. The other two will probably be trade fodder
towards acquiring other vintage computing stuff, so they will hopefully find new homes
before too long. I haven't gotten around to powering them up yet, but they do all look
very nice.
Keep both!
Or, if you can't decide, keep the VT-241. Lovely terminal (and
relative compact), does graphics and in colour too! The VT-131 is an
interesting box as well, but really I personally can't see much use
for the block mode features of the terminal (the 131 being a 102 with
block mode added; think sort of like the IBM 3270 or 5250 terminals).
Also, the VT-241 can be used with more modern systems too, as it has
more features than the 131 (the 131 being a VT-100 and the 241 being a
VT-220, naturally).
But that's just my opinion.
Cheers,
Christian
--
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
9 Oct
9 Oct
4:10 p.m.
Or, if you can't decide, keep the VT-241. Lovely
terminal (and
relative compact), does graphics and in colour too! The VT-131 is an
Ageeed. I must have another fiddle with mine...
The only thing I think DEC got wrong with the VT240 is that you can't
download programs into its RAM and run them. Which, given there's a T11
in there, is a pity...
FWIW, the video system of the VT240 is much the same as the Rainbow
colour card. There's a 7220 graphics chip in the VT240, for example. I
think the PALs used to control memory updating are indentical in the 2
machines, but I would have to check.
-tony
4:57 p.m.
On Oct 9, 2013, at 13:10 , Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
The only thing I think DEC got wrong with the VT240 is
that you can't
download programs into its RAM and run them. Which, given there's a T11
in there, is a pity...
Wait, does that mean that I already sorta have an LSI-11 inside the VT241? Has anybody
every tried swapping out ROMs to run custom code on those? :)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
5:11 p.m.
On Oct 9, 2013, at 4:57 PM, "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
On Oct 9, 2013, at 13:10 , Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
A T-11 is somewhat more limited than an LSI-11, but yes. I'd argue that
if you were to sacrifice something to get a T-11, it should be one of the
many medical devices that used them instead of a VS240, but it WOULD be
pretty neat to run custom code talking directly to the framebuffer
(assuming that's how it actually works in the VS240; I haven't looked).
- Dave
The only thing I think DEC got wrong with the
VT240 is that you can't
download programs into its RAM and run them. Which, given there's a T11
in there, is a pity...
Wait, does that mean that I already sorta have an LSI-11 inside the VT241? Has anybody
every tried swapping out ROMs to run custom code on those? :)
5:36 p.m.
On 9 October 2013 17:11, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
A T-11 is somewhat more limited than an LSI-11, but
yes. I'd argue that
if you were to sacrifice something to get a T-11, it should be one of the
many medical devices that used them instead of a VS240, but it WOULD be
pretty neat to run custom code talking directly to the framebuffer
(assuming that's how it actually works in the VS240; I haven't looked).
Hmm... didn't the Soviet Elektronika BK machines -- which are PDP-11
clones with a custom video and keyboard interface -- do something akin
to that idea? The framebuffer of the VT241 is most probably different
from the video on the BK, but they did both use T-11s
(or a Soviet
clone of the T-11); so could one possibly "massage" a set of
BK ROMs
into something that could possibly make the VT-241 into something akin
to the BK (a PDP-11 based home computer in the vein of a C64, or ZX
Spectrum, or...) though... it does have the issue of lacking an
expansion port that'd let you hook on disk drives or any sort of mass
storage.
Cheers,
Christian
--
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
10 Oct
10 Oct
2:24 a.m.
Wait, does that mean that I already sorta have an
LSI-11 inside the VT241? Has anybody every tried swapping out > ROMs to run custom code
on those? :)
Well, it's T11, not an LSI-11, but yes, it runs PDP11 machine code. It's the
single chip PDP11.
Take a look at page 11 of the printset available on bitsavers :
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/terminal/vt240/MP-0180…
(all one line, of course).
-tony
4 Oct
4 Oct
12:53 p.m.
It would be great for me to get one of these, of even one VT-220. I have a
damaged one (two years ago, sadly).
Regards
SPc.
2013/10/4 MikeS <dm561 at torfree.net>
From the VC forum:
I have several old terminals that have been wrapped in plastic for the
last 3 decades or so that I'd like to give away: (a) DEC VT-131 (b) DEC
VT-241, and (c) a Wyse 350. All three have keyboards and original manuals,
and all were in excellent shape when I put them away. I live in Moreno
Valley, CA, and I would prefer to have someone pick up whatever they want
if possible. If anyone is interested I'm willing to plug any or all in to
make sure they still power up and take them to UPS, but boxing and shipping
is on you. I don't know if this is the right place to list these, but I
thought I'd try to see if anyone wanted them before I just recycled them.
Seemed a shame to just scrap them, but I need the space.
(No email addy; PM on VCF if interested).
m
1:13 p.m.
On Oct 4, 2013, at 08:02 , MikeS <dm561 at torfree.net> wrote:
From the VC forum:
[...]
(No email addy; PM on VCF if interested).
Thanks for sharing that here. I hadn't noticed that post yet. I'm in Riverside, so
I've PM'd him to see if I can get one of the terminals to go with the PDP-8 or
PDP-11 that I hope to acquire someday in the not too distant future.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
1:31 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
Thanks for sharing that here. I hadn't noticed
that post yet. I'm
in Riverside, so I've PM'd him to see if I can get one of the
terminals to go with the PDP-8 or PDP-11 that I hope to acquire
someday in the not too distant future.
The VT241 should have an 8-pin Mate-and-Lok 20mA connector
of the type we were discussing recently that was common with
TTYs. Most PDP-11s have EIA (RS-232) interfaces but the oldest
ones (11/20, 11/05...) also came equipped with 20mA current
loop interfaces. Older PDP-8s (up to and including the -8/e)
also did current loop, but from the -8/e onward, many had EIA.
The M8650 console interface does both - you just install the
right cable on it, and the jumper wire in the Berg connector
routes the correct line driver to the TTL input on the board.
I've never seen a TTY on a PDP-8/a but there's no reason
it couldn't be done. I thing it was just past the era of paper
tape and mechanical console teleprinters by then.
So the VT241 will work for any PDP-8 or PDP-11 you
eventually get. The other terminals are likely to be EIA
only and will work with most stuff made after about 1972
(but it is possible to buy/make a current loop adapter if
all you have is an EIA terminal).
-ethan
2:17 p.m.
On Oct 4, 2013, at 10:31 , Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
So the VT241 will work for any PDP-8 or PDP-11 you
eventually get. The other terminals are likely to be EIA
only and will work with most stuff made after about 1972
(but it is possible to buy/make a current loop adapter if
all you have is an EIA terminal).
Thanks for the information! I was most interested in the VT-131, but it looks like the
VT-241 would be a better option since I don't know what computer I'll pair it up
with yet.
The owner says that he's received several messages from folks interested in the
terminals, especially the VT-131, but I'm the only one so far who's close enough
to just drive over there this weekend and pick them up. He seems motivated to make them
all disappear, so I expect that I'll grab all three and then use two of them as trade
fodder for other vintage computer gear.
Now, if anybody within a hundred miles of me would like to trade a good close-to-working
ASR-33 for all three glass TTYs, I'd be all over that... ;)
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
3937
days inactive
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29 comments
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participants (13)
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a13stesk＠student.his.se -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
b4＠gewt.net -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
captainkirk359＠gmail.com -
chrise＠pobox.com -
dm561＠torfree.net -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
nf6x＠nf6x.net -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
spedraja＠ono.com