Any faithful VT100 Emulators?

[Peter Coghlan]

>
> ________________________________________
> From: cctalk [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] on behalf of Warren Toomey via cctalk [cctalk at classiccmp.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 9:02 PM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Any faithful VT100 Emulators?
>
> OK, so I don't have a real VT100, so I'm accessing an old 4.3BSD system
> with xterm and LXTerminal terminal emulators on Linux. Last night, for a
> laugh, I ran vttest from the 1980s and the terminal emulators performed
> woefully.
>
> Which raises the question, are there any _good_ VT100 terminal
> emulators, especially for Linux? For any other platforms?
> 
> Cheers, Warren
>
> __________________________________________
>
> I've never formally tested it but people say Putty is very good.  I have even
> heard VMS users say it works with LSE.  ANd then, if you have MSDOS
> laying around somewhere there is MSKermit which had to be the best I
> ever saw.
>
> bill

I've used Putty to connect to a VMS system to run TPU (which I think LSE is
a thinly disguised variant of) and I have regularly come across an irritating
bug which messes up full screen editing when the on-screen cursor seems to get
out of step with the text that is actually getting changed, or something like
that anyway.  Scrolling down the file and scrolling back up to the point where
changes were made reveals that the changes actually made were not what it
looked like was changed on the screen.

Having said that Putty is way better than any of the Microsoft telnet or
Hyperterminal offerings which are completely unusable with TPU or anything else
that attempts to make use of a scrolling region (vi maybe? - I don't know).

I haven't used MSKermit for donkeys years but as far as I recall, the emulation 
was very good with the exception of stuff like double height characters and
smooth scroll not being implemented which did not affect functionality in the
way that the Putty bug does.  I haven't used it but I think there were very
good reports about the terminal emulation in Kermit 95.

I can't recall noticing any problems with the terminal emulation when using
whatever telnet client comes with relatively current Apple Mac and Linux
systems in whatever terminal environment they provide (xterm maybe?), nor
the Multinet telnet client on VMS when running it in a DECterm or a real VT
terminal.

I also agree with John Wilson's take on VTTEST being well off the mark.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.