30 Mar
2014
30 Mar
'14
9:39 p.m.
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines need to be used with their own server
box or can they be used with other machines. also what are some stuff u can do with an old
terminal
30 Mar
30 Mar
10:06 p.m.
On Mar 30, 2014, at 21:39 , Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com> wrote:
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines
need to be used with their own server box or can they be used with other machines. also
what are some stuff u can do with an old terminal
There are exceptions, but most dumb terminals I've encountered have an
RS-232-compatible serial port and use the ASCII character set. They can often be used with
other makes of computers. Things like graphics characters, cursor movement, full-screen
editing, etc. may or may not work in any given combination, depending on whether the
computer knows how to control that particular terminal. A lot of terminals were made for
generic use with lots of different computers, and those ones will often be configurable to
emulate one or more common kinds of terminal. Also, a lot of computers were made to be
used with multiple manufacturer's terminals, so they can speak multiple languages.
Besides hooking an old terminal to an old computer, it can also come in handy as a user
interface and/or debugging output for hardware that has a serial port for control and/or
debugging output. For example, you could hook one up to a home-made project based on
something like an Arduino board.
So even today, a dusty old terminal can have some practical use beyond its collector
interest.
--
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/
31 Mar
31 Mar
7:54 a.m.
On 03/31/2014 12:06 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:
On Mar 30, 2014, at 21:39 , Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com> wrote:
Yes, I know where there's an IBM terminal at a thrift store in the local
town, but it's twinax rather than RS232, and as far as I'm aware that was
exclusive to IBM hardware - the terminal itself probably isn't particularly
capable, but it's tied to something which supports twinax (I assume it came
i have wondered something. do old terminal
machines need to be used
with their own server box or can they be used with other machines.
also what are some stuff u can do with an old terminal
There are exceptions from an AS/400 of some flavor)
cheers
Jules
30 Mar
30 Mar
10:12 p.m.
There's difference between a computer terminal and a terminal computer in my mind.
A computer terminal can be regarded as an I/O device. Keybord in and screen/printer
out.
?
A terminal computer usually has local processing and can run stand alone.
For example there were variants of of the DEC VT100 with a LSI 11 cardcage and integral
tape drives.
?
So take your pick, computer terminals are?usually dum I/O devices and depending on what
emulations they support can be conneced to?one or more processors.?
Terminal computers have an on board CPU
?
Rod Smallwood
________________________________
From: Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 5:39
Subject: old terminal computers.
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines need to be used with their own server
box or can they be used with other machines. also what are some stuff u can do with an old
terminal
11:11 p.m.
Hey Derrick - do you run any form of BSD, or Linux (like Ubuntu, Mint,
Fedora, etc) or anything along those lines?
Pop open a terminal window on your Linux system and work away. Basically
+anything+ you can do in that terminal virtual terminal window (like
navigate the file system, run many programs, including text-based email and
web browsers), you can do on a +real+ physical terminal, like a VT102 etc,
that's connected to your Linux machine via a cable.
FYI, I regularly use a Tandy Model 100/102 as a dumb terminal connected to
a Linux box - in this case, it's a Slackware box, but that doesn't matter.
All of the BSD/Linux OSes handle external terminals in a very similar way.
So if you want to play with terminals, I'd suggest setting up a Linux
machine if you don't already have one.
Does that help? ;-)
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:12 AM, R SMALLWOOD <rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com
wrote:
There's difference between a computer terminal and
a terminal computer in
my mind.
A computer terminal can be regarded as an I/O device. Keybord in and
screen/printer
out.
A terminal computer usually has local processing and can run stand alone.
For example there were variants of of the DEC VT100 with a LSI 11 cardcage
and integral tape drives.
So take your pick, computer terminals are usually dum I/O devices and
depending on what emulations they support can be conneced to one or more
processors.
Terminal computers have an on board CPU
Rod Smallwood
________________________________
From: Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 5:39
Subject: old terminal computers.
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines need to be used with
their own server box or can they be used with other machines. also what are
some stuff u can do with an old terminal
11:28 p.m.
Oh - and to answer another shade of your question..
Yes, some terminals (we would call those "proprietary" terminals) are only
designed to communicate with a particular make / model of mainframe or
mini-computer that's running a particular set of software. I +think+ that
some or all of the PLATO terms fall into that category - flame me if I'm
wrong.
But the majority of terminals fall into the generic "dumb serial terminal"
category, and (with a bit of setup) can be made to communicate with
virtually any machine which is willing to talk to a terminal via a standard
RS-232 serial port. There is some setup required on both ends - the server
box needs to know what type of term it's talking to, and the term needs to
be configured to properly handle the serial line to the server. But in
general, it "just works".
If you want real fun, find yourself a functional ITT paper-printing
teletype (say "tele-tank") machine, and get that hooked up to your Linux
box - and from the Linux box, to the web. That's right, read email and
Twitter on paper, heh..
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 1:11 AM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Derrick - do you run any form of BSD, or Linux
(like Ubuntu, Mint,
Fedora, etc) or anything along those lines?
Pop open a terminal window on your Linux system and work away. Basically
+anything+ you can do in that terminal virtual terminal window (like
navigate the file system, run many programs, including text-based email and
web browsers), you can do on a +real+ physical terminal, like a VT102 etc,
that's connected to your Linux machine via a cable.
FYI, I regularly use a Tandy Model 100/102 as a dumb terminal connected to
a Linux box - in this case, it's a Slackware box, but that doesn't matter.
All of the BSD/Linux OSes handle external terminals in a very similar way.
So if you want to play with terminals, I'd suggest setting up a Linux
machine if you don't already have one.
Does that help? ;-)
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:12 AM, R SMALLWOOD <
rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
There's difference between a computer
terminal and a terminal computer in
my mind.
A computer terminal can be regarded as an I/O device. Keybord in and
screen/printer
out.
A terminal computer usually has local processing and can run stand alone.
For example there were variants of of the DEC VT100 with a LSI 11
cardcage and integral tape drives.
So take your pick, computer terminals are usually dum I/O devices and
depending on what emulations they support can be conneced to one or more
processors.
Terminal computers have an on board CPU
Rod Smallwood
________________________________
From: Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 5:39
Subject: old terminal computers.
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines need to be used with
their own server box or can they be used with other machines. also what are
some stuff u can do with an old terminal
31 Mar
31 Mar
6:04 a.m.
Back in the mid 1970's the console terminal was nearly always a printing treminal of
some type.
At DEC we gradually migrated from ASR33's (teletype) to dox matrix types such as the
LA36 and the LA120.
?
You could roll back the output by flipping back through the pile of paper.
Noisy, dot matrix character I/O a line at a time. Wonderful !!! Real computing !!!
?
Paper Tape - Yes please !!!
80 Col cards - Right on brother !!!
Mag tape drives in six foot racks - Ooh! Ooh!
?
If you can hear yourself think somethings not running.
?
Rod Smallwood
?
________________________________
From: drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 7:28
Subject: Re: old terminal computers.
Oh - and to answer another shade of your question..
Yes, some terminals (we would call those "proprietary" terminals) are only
designed to communicate with a particular make / model of mainframe or
mini-computer that's running a particular set of software. I +think+ that
some or all of the PLATO terms fall into that category - flame me if I'm
wrong.
But the majority of terminals fall into the generic "dumb serial terminal"
category, and (with a bit of setup) can be made to communicate with
virtually any machine which is willing to talk to a terminal via a standard
RS-232 serial port. There is some setup required on both ends - the server
box needs to know what type of term it's talking to, and the term needs to
be configured to properly handle the serial line to the server. But in
general, it "just works".
If you want real fun, find yourself a functional ITT paper-printing
teletype (say "tele-tank") machine, and get that hooked up to your Linux
box - and from the Linux box, to the web. That's right, read email and
Twitter on paper, heh..
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 1:11 AM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Derrick - do you run any form of BSD, or Linux
(like Ubuntu, Mint,
Fedora, etc) or anything along those lines?
Pop open a terminal window on your Linux system and work away. Basically
+anything+ you can do in that terminal virtual terminal window (like
navigate the file system, run many programs, including text-based email and
web browsers), you can do on a +real+ physical terminal, like a VT102 etc,
that's connected to your Linux machine via a cable.
FYI, I regularly use a Tandy Model 100/102 as a dumb terminal connected to
a Linux box - in this case, it's a Slackware box, but that doesn't matter.
All of the BSD/Linux OSes handle external terminals in a very similar way.
So if you want to play with terminals, I'd suggest setting up a Linux
machine if you don't already have one.
Does that help? ;-)
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:12 AM, R SMALLWOOD <
rodsmallwood52 at btinternet.com> wrote:
There's difference between a computer
terminal and a terminal computer in
my mind.
A computer terminal can be regarded as an I/O device. Keybord in and
screen/printer
out.
A terminal computer usually has local processing and can run stand alone.
For example there were variants of of the DEC VT100 with a LSI 11
cardcage and integral tape drives.
So take your pick, computer terminals are usually dum I/O devices and
depending on what emulations they support can be conneced to one or more
processors.
Terminal computers have an on board CPU
Rod Smallwood
________________________________
From: Derrick Meury <rmx44 at aim.com>
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 5:39
Subject: old terminal computers.
i have wondered something. do old terminal machines need to be used with
their own server box or can they be used with other machines. also what are
some stuff u can do with an old terminal
7:49 a.m.
On 03/31/2014 01:11 AM, drlegendre . wrote:
Pop open a terminal window on your Linux system and
work away. Basically
+anything+ you can do in that terminal virtual terminal window (like
navigate the file system, run many programs, including text-based email and
web browsers), you can do on a +real+ physical terminal, like a VT102 etc,
that's connected to your Linux machine via a cable.
For certain values of "anything" :)
For a while, 1997-ish, I ran an NCD X Terminal on my desk, with the PC
itself (running Linux) tucked away in a cupboard where it couldn't be
heard. For anything graphical or text-based, it worked very well, but the
lack of audio support eventually killed the idea - although I wasn't much
of a gamer, it was around the time that storing music digitally in mp3
format began to take hold, and there wasn't a sensible way to get an audio
feed from the PC to the NCD.
FYI, I regularly use a Tandy Model 100/102 as a dumb
terminal connected to
a Linux box - in this case, it's a Slackware box, but that doesn't matter.
Ha. I tried exactly the same thing last year, just for the heck of it more
than anything (I figured it would never be much use with so few lines on
the screen). It mostly worked, but I couldn't quite get the config right on
the Linux side such that it wouldn't send things that would confuse the Tandy.
I've got an Epson QX-10 which lives permanently on the desk next to this
PC, so one of these days I'll get around to sorting out a terminal emulator
for that - at least it should be able to handle 80x25.
cheers
Jules
3918
days inactive
3918
days old
7 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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drlegendre＠gmail.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
nf6x＠nf6x.net -
rmx44＠aim.com -
rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com