VT100s

[Mark Matlock]

   One terminal system I haven’t seen mentioned is the VT LAN40. I bought one new in the box about a year ago from Keyways ($400) and have found it to be very useful although it is not contemporary with most of the DEC systems we discuss.

  It needs a flat screen monitor, but can have multiple windows that allow cut and paste between between serial ports and it can talk LAT, CTERM, Telnet on its ethernet port. It has a mouse and does a great VT340 emulation. The unit can
Mounted vertically and take very little bench space, but as has been mentioned before the keyboard is a typical VT420 sized keyboard.

  It has a history buffer so has many of the advantages of a good software emulator but is very accurate in the emulation. It gives me a single screen and keyboard that I can use to simultaneously work with my RSX11M+ (via LAT), the RT-11 MINC via serial and the two VAXes and any RPi’s running linux.

  The CPU is a little slow but response is acceptable. The ROMs in it might have bit a good starting point for reverse engineering.

   I think Keyways has a number of them and believe he will sell to hobbyists at the lower price above.

I found this description at https://vt100.net/dec/vt_history

VT LAN40
In February 1995, Digital announced the VT LAN40, a colour windowing network terminal. This device was a diskless PC, containing Windows 3.1 in ROM, and supporting up to eight terminal sessions over LAT, DECnet, TCP/IP or serial line, using TD/SMP. The system box and mouse had a suggested list price of $890. It connected to standard PC keyboards and monitors.

Mark