Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[John Long]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2016 at 04:40:20PM -0600, Nick Bender wrote:

> I wonder if any FORTRAN programmers out there remember the trick of putting
> line numbers after column 72 so the card sort could sort your program back
> into order when you dropped your card deck?

This was not limited to FORTRAN. We always used sequence numbers in 73-80
for exactly this reason. To this day the MVS (z/OS) editor will place them
for you in those colums automatically when you say "num on" or "renum". This
works for assembler, COBOL, and PL/I too.

And yeah you won't understand unless you ever dropped a box of cards or saw
the look of horror on somebody else's face when he did.

> Finally I'll never get back the three days I spent finding the zero I had
> mistakenly put in place of the letter O in my JCL at the front of the card
> deck. Good times...

We're still keeping the faith!

/jl

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Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Nick Bender]

Just a couple added memories.

Punched cards were my first experience with "copy/paste" - there was a
"duplicate card" key on the card machine which would create a duplicate of
the card you queued up in the input slot. Of course you could also
cut/paste just by moving the card :-).

Above the card reader at the computing center there was a very colorful
"beware the rubber bandito" sign to remind you to remove the rubber band
from your card deck :-)

I also remember the transition from 300 baud modems to 1200 baud modems
than made a full screen editor usable vs. the line editor that we used with
300 baud modems.

I wonder if any FORTRAN programmers out there remember the trick of putting
line numbers after column 72 so the card sort could sort your program back
into order when you dropped your card deck?

Finally I'll never get back the three days I spent finding the zero I had
mistakenly put in place of the letter O in my JCL at the front of the card
deck. Good times...

On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 10:31 PM, Dave Anderson 
wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Apr 2016, ropers wrote:
>
> On 4 April 2016 at 02:06, Adam Thompson  wrote:
>>
>> On 2016-04-01 11:07, ropers wrote:
>>>
>>> And if anyone has ever operated the OpenBSD installer via a teleprinter,
 I want to hear that story.


>>> I think there's still a first-generation TI Silent 700 somewhere in my
>>> parents' basement.  If, when they either die and/or move out to a
>>> seniors'
>>> residence prior to that certain event, I should run across it, and I can
>>> find a compatible telephone (acoustic handset coupler, remember!), and
>>> can
>>> find a compatible 300bps modem to dial into, and can find an
>>> honest-to-god
>>> POTS phone line (I expect this to be the hardest part) and can find a
>>> compatible system with a serial console that can be stepped down to
>>> 300bps,
>>> and the thermal paper is still viable, I'll do a fresh install just so I
>>> can mail you the ~3-4m of thermal paper I suspect that would generate.
>>> Would that be close enough for you?  :-)
>>>
>>>
>> YES! I'd be extremely honoured to receive something like that. But, I
>> think
>> there are probably more worthy recipients. Computer museums, even.
>>
>>
>> (Actually, it just occurred to me that I don't need the phone line as long
>>> as I can also find the old PENRIL modem that can start training on a
>>> front-panel button-press instead of a -90v ring signal.  Or maybe the
>>> local
>>> museum will have a 300bps acoustic-coupler modem I can borrow?)
>>>
>>>
>> Wikipedia currently says that at least some Silent 700s could be locally
>> connected:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700
>> Of course, that technically sort of takes away the tele- part from the
>> teleprinter (which is not to say that the device was now just a printer),
>> but I definitely think that an install to a locally attached teleprinter
>> counts. The key here is that it's monitorless, so not a glass terminal;
>> the
>> paper is the only place where you get to see output.
>>
>
> I love it, btw., that the Wikipedia article speaks of "the new high-speed
>> interactive computing environment" -- at 1200 baud. :)
>>
>
> That was advanced stuff.  I remember how pleased we were when we upgraded
> to blazingly fast 300 baud 'glass teletypes' from 110 baud KSR35 teletypes.
>
> Dave
>
>
> Those were days when actual interactive use of a computer was not unlike
>> getting telescope time at a major observatory -- and before time-sharing
>> allowed concurrent multi-user access, it must have been almost exactly
>> alike.
>> Like Woz said in the Youtube video I linked: "Your use on these company
>> computers, it was so far above us in value."
>>
>>
>> I vaguely recall once doing an OpenBSD install where the "console" path
>>> was:
>>> Local VT220 -> multiplexer -> modem -> DATAPAC 3101 (Canadian X.25
>>> service) PAD -> remote PAD -> remote dial-out service -> another modem ->
>>> another multiplexer -> serial line into, IIRC, ttyA on a Sun system I was
>>> helping someone repurpose.  The entire install completed successfully
>>> off a
>>> network boot in about an hour at 2400bps (*and* simultaneously 2400baud,
>>> all you pedants out there...).
>>>
>>>
>> Wow.
>>
>>
> --
> Dave Anderson
> 

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Dave Anderson]

On Mon, 4 Apr 2016, ropers wrote:


On 4 April 2016 at 02:06, Adam Thompson  wrote:


On 2016-04-01 11:07, ropers wrote:


And if anyone has ever operated the OpenBSD installer via a teleprinter,
I want to hear that story.



I think there's still a first-generation TI Silent 700 somewhere in my
parents' basement.  If, when they either die and/or move out to a seniors'
residence prior to that certain event, I should run across it, and I can
find a compatible telephone (acoustic handset coupler, remember!), and can
find a compatible 300bps modem to dial into, and can find an honest-to-god
POTS phone line (I expect this to be the hardest part) and can find a
compatible system with a serial console that can be stepped down to 300bps,
and the thermal paper is still viable, I'll do a fresh install just so I
can mail you the ~3-4m of thermal paper I suspect that would generate.
Would that be close enough for you?  :-)



YES! I'd be extremely honoured to receive something like that. But, I think
there are probably more worthy recipients. Computer museums, even.



(Actually, it just occurred to me that I don't need the phone line as long
as I can also find the old PENRIL modem that can start training on a
front-panel button-press instead of a -90v ring signal.  Or maybe the local
museum will have a 300bps acoustic-coupler modem I can borrow?)



Wikipedia currently says that at least some Silent 700s could be locally
connected:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700
Of course, that technically sort of takes away the tele- part from the
teleprinter (which is not to say that the device was now just a printer),
but I definitely think that an install to a locally attached teleprinter
counts. The key here is that it's monitorless, so not a glass terminal; the
paper is the only place where you get to see output.



I love it, btw., that the Wikipedia article speaks of "the new high-speed
interactive computing environment" -- at 1200 baud. :)


That was advanced stuff.  I remember how pleased we were when we 
upgraded to blazingly fast 300 baud 'glass teletypes' from 110 baud 
KSR35 teletypes.


Dave


Those were days when actual interactive use of a computer was not unlike
getting telescope time at a major observatory -- and before time-sharing
allowed concurrent multi-user access, it must have been almost exactly
alike.
Like Woz said in the Youtube video I linked: "Your use on these company
computers, it was so far above us in value."



I vaguely recall once doing an OpenBSD install where the "console" path
was:
Local VT220 -> multiplexer -> modem -> DATAPAC 3101 (Canadian X.25
service) PAD -> remote PAD -> remote dial-out service -> another modem ->
another multiplexer -> serial line into, IIRC, ttyA on a Sun system I was
helping someone repurpose.  The entire install completed successfully off a
network boot in about an hour at 2400bps (*and* simultaneously 2400baud,
all you pedants out there...).



Wow.



--
Dave Anderson

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[ropers]

On 4 April 2016 at 02:06, Adam Thompson  wrote:

> On 2016-04-01 11:07, ropers wrote:
>
>> And if anyone has ever operated the OpenBSD installer via a teleprinter,
>> I want to hear that story.
>>
>
> I think there's still a first-generation TI Silent 700 somewhere in my
> parents' basement.  If, when they either die and/or move out to a seniors'
> residence prior to that certain event, I should run across it, and I can
> find a compatible telephone (acoustic handset coupler, remember!), and can
> find a compatible 300bps modem to dial into, and can find an honest-to-god
> POTS phone line (I expect this to be the hardest part) and can find a
> compatible system with a serial console that can be stepped down to 300bps,
> and the thermal paper is still viable, I'll do a fresh install just so I
> can mail you the ~3-4m of thermal paper I suspect that would generate.
> Would that be close enough for you?  :-)
>

YES! I'd be extremely honoured to receive something like that. But, I think
there are probably more worthy recipients. Computer museums, even.


> (Actually, it just occurred to me that I don't need the phone line as long
> as I can also find the old PENRIL modem that can start training on a
> front-panel button-press instead of a -90v ring signal.  Or maybe the local
> museum will have a 300bps acoustic-coupler modem I can borrow?)
>

Wikipedia currently says that at least some Silent 700s could be locally
connected:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700
Of course, that technically sort of takes away the tele- part from the
teleprinter (which is not to say that the device was now just a printer),
but I definitely think that an install to a locally attached teleprinter
counts. The key here is that it's monitorless, so not a glass terminal; the
paper is the only place where you get to see output.
I love it, btw., that the Wikipedia article speaks of "the new high-speed
interactive computing environment" -- at 1200 baud. :)
Those were days when actual interactive use of a computer was not unlike
getting telescope time at a major observatory -- and before time-sharing
allowed concurrent multi-user access, it must have been almost exactly
alike.
Like Woz said in the Youtube video I linked: "Your use on these company
computers, it was so far above us in value."


> I vaguely recall once doing an OpenBSD install where the "console" path
> was:
> Local VT220 -> multiplexer -> modem -> DATAPAC 3101 (Canadian X.25
> service) PAD -> remote PAD -> remote dial-out service -> another modem ->
> another multiplexer -> serial line into, IIRC, ttyA on a Sun system I was
> helping someone repurpose.  The entire install completed successfully off a
> network boot in about an hour at 2400bps (*and* simultaneously 2400baud,
> all you pedants out there...).
>

Wow.

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[wmcowan]

Adam Thompson writes:
> On 2016-04-01 11:07, ropers wrote:
> > And if anyone has ever operated the OpenBSD installer via a 
> > teleprinter, I want to hear that story.
> 
> I think there's still a first-generation TI Silent 700 somewhere in my 
> parents' basement.  If, when they either die and/or move out to a 
> seniors' residence prior to that certain event, I should run across it, 
> and I can find a compatible telephone (acoustic handset coupler, 
> remember!), and can find a compatible 300bps modem to dial into, and can 
> find an honest-to-god POTS phone line (I expect this to be the hardest 
> part) and can find a compatible system with a serial console that can be 

Well, I have the hardest part: a dial telephone (ca. 1930) with an
old-style handset and an analogue line right through the switch to
the telephone I'm talking to.

Why on earth would anybody have such a thing? The combination of a
handset with the speaker near my ear and the microphone near my
mouth plus an analogue line provides me with signal-to-noise good
enough that my aging ears can actually understand what's being said
to me, and that the listener at the other end can understand me
without the rest of the world being forced to share my end of the
conversation.

My 300bps acoustic handset coupler, however, is gathering dust in
the basement.

Bill

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Adam Thompson]

On 2016-04-01 11:07, ropers wrote:
And if anyone has ever operated the OpenBSD installer via a 
teleprinter, I want to hear that story.


I think there's still a first-generation TI Silent 700 somewhere in my 
parents' basement.  If, when they either die and/or move out to a 
seniors' residence prior to that certain event, I should run across it, 
and I can find a compatible telephone (acoustic handset coupler, 
remember!), and can find a compatible 300bps modem to dial into, and can 
find an honest-to-god POTS phone line (I expect this to be the hardest 
part) and can find a compatible system with a serial console that can be 
stepped down to 300bps, and the thermal paper is still viable, I'll do a 
fresh install just so I can mail you the ~3-4m of thermal paper I 
suspect that would generate.  Would that be close enough for you?  :-)


(Actually, it just occurred to me that I don't need the phone line as 
long as I can also find the old PENRIL modem that can start training on 
a front-panel button-press instead of a -90v ring signal.  Or maybe the 
local museum will have a 300bps acoustic-coupler modem I can borrow?)


Many of the readers here have absolutely installed OpenBSD (and other 
*NIXes) via serial port, sometimes using a local terminal, sometimes 
using a modem, sometimes even vastly more esoteric combinations than 
anyone could reasonably expect.

I vaguely recall once doing an OpenBSD install where the "console" path was:
Local VT220 -> multiplexer -> modem -> DATAPAC 3101 (Canadian X.25 
service) PAD -> remote PAD -> remote dial-out service -> another modem 
-> another multiplexer -> serial line into, IIRC, ttyA on a Sun system I 
was helping someone repurpose.  The entire install completed 
successfully off a network boot in about an hour at 2400bps (*and* 
simultaneously 2400baud, all you pedants out there...).
So while that wasn't quite an actual teletype, the whole purpose of 
serial ports and serial terminals as a "standard" is that crazy shit 
like that can actually happen!


-Adam

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[ropers]

Steve Litt wrote:

> I was a DEC PDP/11 TSX over RT-11 guy back then, but as I remember, a
> terminal was a television that printed letters and numbers plus a
> keyboard on which you could type.

I have to disagree a little bit in that actual TVs were too low-rez for
good 80-column text, which has a longer tradition. However, TV-compatible
40-column or lower text modes did come into play during the microcomputer
revolution, at the Homebrew Computer Club, and with the TV Typewriter
(which was more of an electronics hobbyist project, but could be turned
into a terminal, though not a "professional" one). The DOS PC CGA also
supported 40-column modes--it had a composite/TV output besides RGBI. Of
course, if by television you basically meant CRT, then I'd agree.

I'll add some more, actually.
(This isn't first-hand knowledge, but I forget where I got it from --
possibly various sources.)

Here's some
-=PREHISTORY=-
  which explains more of how terminals came to be:

The kind of early electronic data processing that lead to terminals really
started with (electromechanical) tabulating machines. Those gave us the
standardized punch card. Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust" contains
(not very detailed and technical) descriptions, and even photos of such a
machine and some punch cards. An early use for these evolving machines was
the census, in the US and later in (Nazi-) Germany.
The way this worked was, these cardboard punch cards got holes stamped into
them to encode information on them. This was done in dedicated card punches
(keypunches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keypunch), which generally were
a cross between a hole punch and a typewriter. There was an array of rows
and columns and a clerical worker would type and thereby punch the right
holes in the right positions. IBM soon standardized on the 80-column card,
and that's why most terminals, screen fidelity permitting, got 80-column
text. One punch card could encode one such line of text. (ASCII text? Well,
sort of, similar. Let's forget that EBCDIC ever existed.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#IBM_80-column_punched_card_formats_and_character_codes
I don't know if there's a specific reason for the 24 (later sometimes 25)
lines of most terminals, but I guess it had to do with being a multiple of
8 and just how many 80-column lines could legibly be fit onto a 4:3 aspect
ratio CRT display. But that came later. Back to the cards.

Those punch cards were fed to a reader, which was an array of contacts that
would be lowered onto and --holes permitting-- through a card. Early
tabulators had little pockets of liquid mercury underneath each position,
and the electrical circuit was closed by the contacts dipping into that.
(Hello OSHA.) Those tabulating machines weren't computers, and some early
ones just had clock dial counters, on which hands would advance when a
contact was closed. This already allowed electromechanical addition though:
Feed in a card, read it, have the hands advance. Feed in a second card,
read it, have the hands advance some more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HollerithMachine.CHM.jpg
Other tabulating machine setups included sorters, where cards would be
sorted in different output stacks depending on their hole-encoded
information. (There's a link from that to VisiCalc and Excel, but that's OT
to this OT post.)

When computers were invented, these 80-column cards quickly became the
industry-standard input/output mechanism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card_input/output
The programmer/user would write a program or calculation on paper, mail or
hand that paper to the clerical staff who would type/punch that information
into cards, and then a whole pile of punched cards would be delivered to
the computer operators, who would carefully deposit them into the punch
card reader, and these machines had feeders which could quickly process a
whole batch of cards, one after another. This is what gave us batch
processing.
For output, these computers could either themselves punch cards and/or they
could use a line printer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_printer
(Sometimes the output was the way the cards got sorted, but that was mostly
a tabulating machine thing.)

It was pretty standard then to hand in your program sheets and get back
your printed results back on continuous stationery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_stationery
This was technically multi-user, but you had to queue and wait maybe hours
or a day for your cards to be processed and to get your results back.
Longer if it went through the mail. (DO NOT BEND was very important if
punch cards were mailed, because punch card readers really don't like
warped cards.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing#Batch_processing

Meanwhile, the telegraphy industry had developed the teletype, which was a
teleprinter, basically a typewriter that could electronically transmit
typed characters, across a room or across the country, and 

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Joseph Pumphrey]

On Mar 30, 2016 4:29 PM, "Mihai Popescu"  wrote:
>
> I can see now why our keyboards are using Ctrl key, PgUp, PgDn, or why
> the serial port is so close programmed using terminal terminology.
>
> Thank you and please excuse me for the OT.
>

I still have IBM 122-key keyboards lying around from working in government
buildings and ripping out old terminals. Quite an education, as was this
thread!

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Adam Thompson]

On 16-03-30 03:07 AM, Sean Kamath wrote:

Still using a Wyse (50?) on my Ultrasparc 80.

In college, we had these weird DEC PC’s that we used as VT100 compatible
terminals.
That would either have been a DEC Rainbow, which was a 
hybrid-dual-processor 8088/Z80 machine that ran MS/DOS, CP/M *and* had a 
full-blown VT220 emulator in ROM, or a VT180 "Robin" which was basically 
a (Z80-based) VT102/VT103 with enough memory (i.e. 64k) to run CP/M off 
the attached floppy drives.


I had a Rainbow, which is in *many* ways an architecturally fascinating 
machine, during the late '80s/early '90s as my primary PC.  I also had a 
Northern Telecom Displayphone, and then later a DisplayPhone II, for 
those of you with a perverse bent for terminal history.


Of course, I'm also the author of at least five termcap(5)/terminfo(5) 
entries, some of which have not yet been superseded by better 
definitions in the ncurses master list... so naturally I had some really 
f*ing weird terminals at various points in my life.


I wish I could remember what the name was of the "portable" terminal I 
once had - off-white (of course), looked like a Buck Rogers spaceship 
(pointy cylinder) in profile, and the entire front two inches of it 
unsnapped to become the keyboard kind of like an Osborne...


-Adam

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Mihai Popescu]

Thank you all for the answers. I can say I got the idea of what a
terminal was back then.
Reading all your posts and searching again on web using the mentioned
keywords move away any if not all of my confusions about "terminals".
I can see now why our keyboards are using Ctrl key, PgUp, PgDn, or why
the serial port is so close programmed using terminal terminology.

Thank you and please excuse me for the OT.

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Eric Huiban]

Sent from my WIKO PULP 4G
Le 30 mars 2016 10:07, Sean Kamath  a écrit :
>
> Still using a Wyse (50?) on my Ultrasparc 80. 
>
> In college, we had these weird DEC PC’s that we used as VT100 compatible 
> terminals. 
>
> There were so many.  The VT100 was the prototype what XTerm emulated. 
>
> Sean 
>
> > On Mar 29, 2016, at 5:18 AM, Nick Holland  
> wrote: 
> > Some things to search for: 
> > * DEC VT100  (a terminal that still influcences the standards today) 
> > * DEC VT52   (a terminal with an easier to understand command set) 
> > * ADM3A  (a terminal that was old when the DEC vt100 came out) 
> > * DECwriter  (printing terminal.  DECwriter II was a beautiful machine) 
> > * TI Silent 700 ("home oriented" printing terminal.  At the time, in the 
> > US, it was illegal to attach non-telephone company equipment to the 
> > telephone company's phone lines...) 
> > * ASCII  (the non-IBM standard character coding system) 
> > * EBCDIC (the IBM standard) 
> > * ASR33  (one of the earliest printing terminals.  And why we use 
> > "TTY" today in the Unix world!  If you wonder why unix commands are so 
> > short, imagine typing on this...) 
> > * Tektronix 4010 (In case you thought terminals were dull and graphics 
> > free...and I suspect a LOT of people who have been rolling their eyes at 
> > everything I've said up to now will have their eyes bug out a bit when 
> > they figure out how these things work) 
> > 
> > Anything more than that (and probably a lot less than that), probably 
> > best to ask me off list. :)  (and yes, I've glossed over and simplified 
> > a few things here) 
> > 
> > Nick. 
>

You may have also a look at the ncd 88k terminal which was also a very common 
terminal. Wikipedia has a small article about this at "X terminal". 

Éric

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Sean Kamath]

Still using a Wyse (50?) on my Ultrasparc 80.

In college, we had these weird DEC PC’s that we used as VT100 compatible
terminals.

There were so many.  The VT100 was the prototype what XTerm emulated.

Sean

> On Mar 29, 2016, at 5:18 AM, Nick Holland 
wrote:
> Some things to search for:
> * DEC VT100  (a terminal that still influcences the standards today)
> * DEC VT52   (a terminal with an easier to understand command set)
> * ADM3A  (a terminal that was old when the DEC vt100 came out)
> * DECwriter  (printing terminal.  DECwriter II was a beautiful machine)
> * TI Silent 700 ("home oriented" printing terminal.  At the time, in the
> US, it was illegal to attach non-telephone company equipment to the
> telephone company's phone lines...)
> * ASCII  (the non-IBM standard character coding system)
> * EBCDIC (the IBM standard)
> * ASR33  (one of the earliest printing terminals.  And why we use
> "TTY" today in the Unix world!  If you wonder why unix commands are so
> short, imagine typing on this...)
> * Tektronix 4010 (In case you thought terminals were dull and graphics
> free...and I suspect a LOT of people who have been rolling their eyes at
> everything I've said up to now will have their eyes bug out a bit when
> they figure out how these things work)
>
> Anything more than that (and probably a lot less than that), probably
> best to ask me off list. :)  (and yes, I've glossed over and simplified
> a few things here)
>
> Nick.

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Steve Litt]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2016 14:20:35 +0300
Mihai Popescu  wrote:

> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal.

I was a DEC PDP/11 TSX over RT-11 guy back then, but as I remember, a
terminal was a television that printed letters and numbers plus a
keyboard on which you could type.

The television and keyboard connected to the computer with a serial
cable (RS-232). The serial cable conducted 1 byte letters, numbers, and
a few control and special characters, in each direction. So even a pig
slow serial connection could fill up the television pretty fast: The
computer had no concept of pixels.

To convert letters and digits from the computer to screen pixels, the
television part of the terminal contained a hardware-implemented
character generator. Similarly, switch pairs, from the keyboard,
representing key presses, were converted, at the terminal, to ascii
bytes before being sent to the computer.

The benefits were many. This was an incredibly thin interface, such
that pretty much anything that could send and receive ascii bytes could
be used interchangeably. The 1 byte per letter meant the serial
connection wouldn't be taxed too heavily. The offloading of letter to
graphics to the terminal meant the computer, which had less power than
today's cell phones, could spend its time running jobs rather than
shuffling pixels.

And one benefit that carries over to today: The thin ascii interface
meant the terminal would come up live incredibly early in the boot,
which helped a lot in troubleshooting and bootstrapping up to a useful
system. I can't count the times when, faced with a no-boot, partial
POST computer, I wish I had a terminal to plug into the serial port,
probably after removing the video card. Sure, I could use another
computer plus minicom, but minicom itself introduces so many variables
it's not worth it. 

SteveT

Steve Litt 
March 2016 featured book: Quit Joblessness: Start Your Own Business
http://www.troubleshooters.com/startbiz

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Eike Lantzsch]

On Tuesday 29 March 2016 14:20:35 Mihai Popescu wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
> 
> Thank you.

Hazeltine 2000 anyone?
http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/Hazeltine_2000

When I started building my own Z80 system I got a used Hazeltine 2000. As soon 
as I saw it was only capable of capital chars I slaughtered it and replaced 
the boards with my own V24 terminal card on a 160x100mm board. It was also 
based on a Z80.
The keyboard was a reprogrammed (EPROM) parallel WANG keyboard - it was also 
based on a Z80.

Eike

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2016-03-29, Mihai Popescu  wrote:

> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal.

Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_terminal

http://vt100.net/

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber  na...@mips.inka.de

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[ropers]

On 29 March 2016 at 14:18, Nick Holland wrote:

> * ADM3A  (a terminal that was old when the DEC vt100 came out)
>

I want to add special emphasis to Nick's mention of this terminal. It is
more fully known as the LSI ADM-3A. LSI for Lear Siegler Incorporated.
This for some reason was yuuugely influential. There are Wikipedia articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#Legacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lear_Siegler

The design looked very Space Age. And indeed, when it first came out,
Apollo was still flying.

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Tor Houghton]

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 08:18:34AM -0400, Nick Holland wrote:
> 
> * TI Silent 700 ("home oriented" printing terminal.  At the time, in the
> US, it was illegal to attach non-telephone company equipment to the
> telephone company's phone lines...)

!!

I fondly remember playing Adventure on one of these. At one end, a
CDC Cyber, and the other, a teenager amazed at the yards and yards of
unrolled thermal paper that was left after each session. :-)

Tor

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Francois Pussault]

> 
> From: Mihai Popescu 
> Sent: Tue Mar 29 13:20:35 CEST 2016
> To: 
> Subject: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal
>
>
> Hello,
>
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
>
> Thank you.
>

Hello,

you may search on teletype or serial port or getty
I currently use both a vt320 (orange) & a ibm 3151  (green) on a linux
station.

When I run my D200 HPPA OpenBSD I also use the IBM model.


Cordialement
Francois Pussault
10 chemin de négo saoumos
apt 202 - bat 2
31300 Toulouse
+33 6 17 230 820   +33 5 34 365 269
fpussa...@contactoffice.fr

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Nick Holland]

On 03/29/16 07:20, Mihai Popescu wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
> 
> Thank you.

long, long ago...on a computer in a dump far far away...

Rather than having a video display device inside the computer, a serial
terminal was used.  The terminal provided the keyboard and the display
of some kind and communicated with the computer over relatively simple
protocol, typically a RS-232 serial port.

The first generation "display of some kind" were typically printers.
After killing huge quantities of trees, the industry switched to using
CRTs as the display device.

If the computer sent out the sequence of bytes (in hex)
48 65 6c 6c 6f 0d 0a 57 6f 72 6c 64 21
the terminal would display something like:
+---
| Hello
| World!_
|

the "0d" is a "carriage return" (CR), and moves the cursor (where the
next character will be displayed (and represented by the "_"  after the
"!" above) to the beginning of the SAME line, and "0a" is a Line Feed
(LF) and moves the character DOWN a line, so the next characters are at
the beginning of the next line.  (This is a point of confusion -- while
most terminals required a CR and a LF to move the cursor to the
beginning of the next line, different computers used different character
sequences to indicate the end of the line internally.  MSDOS, CP/M and
most other older, non-Unix systems used the CR/LF combination.  Apple
used CR only.  Unix uses LF only.  I'd argue that Unix is technically
WRONG, but it is ever so convenient for a LOT of reasons.

Most CRT-based terminals supported magic character sequences that did
things like clear the screen, locate the cursor at a particular
position, increase the intensity of the character (bold face) or reverse
video the character, etc.  More advanced (i.e., "less ancient")
terminals could do different sized characters (though usually an integer
multiple of the standard size -- double high, double wide),

Meanwhile, characters you type on the keyboard are sent to the computer
over the same serial interface.  One thing worth understanding is that
some keys on the keyboard generate one character (a-z, numbers,
punctuation), others generate NONE, but modify the other key's sent code
(i.e., "a" sends 61 hex, shift-a sends 41 hex, ctrl-a sends 01 hex), and
others send MULTIPLE characters (arrow keys, function keys).

Terminals were not a "Unix" thing -- most terminals (ignoring IBM's
products) were device agnostic, and could be used with almost any
computer that spoke the same language, which was usually ASCII (again,
ignoring IBM).  And yes, most of them were horribly Western language
(and even then, mostly "English") focused.

You can still attach a serial terminal to a unix machine and use it as
back in the 1970s and 1980s, but today, we generally use a full computer
running a terminal emulator program.  And in fact, when you ssh to a
machine, you are using a terminal-like system, with SSH as the protocol
over an ethernet cable instead of the serial cable.


Some things to search for:
* DEC VT100  (a terminal that still influcences the standards today)
* DEC VT52   (a terminal with an easier to understand command set)
* ADM3A  (a terminal that was old when the DEC vt100 came out)
* DECwriter  (printing terminal.  DECwriter II was a beautiful machine)
* TI Silent 700 ("home oriented" printing terminal.  At the time, in the
US, it was illegal to attach non-telephone company equipment to the
telephone company's phone lines...)
* ASCII  (the non-IBM standard character coding system)
* EBCDIC (the IBM standard)
* ASR33  (one of the earliest printing terminals.  And why we use
"TTY" today in the Unix world!  If you wonder why unix commands are so
short, imagine typing on this...)
* Tektronix 4010 (In case you thought terminals were dull and graphics
free...and I suspect a LOT of people who have been rolling their eyes at
everything I've said up to now will have their eyes bug out a bit when
they figure out how these things work)

Anything more than that (and probably a lot less than that), probably
best to ask me off list. :)  (and yes, I've glossed over and simplified
a few things here)

Nick.

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Kapetanakis Giannis]

On 29/03/16 14:20, Mihai Popescu wrote:

Hello,

This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
search deeper on the web.

Thank you.



We still use some of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT420
http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/Terminals/VT420.html

You might also want to check "terminal server"

G

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri]

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 02:20:35PM +0300, Mihai Popescu wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
> 
> Thank you.
> 

I owned, until a few years ago, an orange-on-black vt320 terminal
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT320).  I used it to interface with my
Sun Ultra 5 workstation and I also used it for an older Sun SPARCstation
4.  I believe I ran OpenBSD on them, but I'm sure I used NetBSD most of
the time (late 90's).  I've always been working at the command line.
so I'm not really interested in the X stuff, especially not on slower
hardware.

Working on the vt320 was easy on the eyes (soft large-ish letters) and
the monitor itself was smaller than the bulky CRTs of the pre-LCD era.

I used it at home from time to time, not at work.  I gave it, and the
Sun machines, up when I got tired of the long compile times of the
machines and the slow serial line to the terminal.  But I still regret
dumping the terminal, it was kinda neat.  I might be trying to find
another one eventually, or something like it, but I have nothing to
connect it to at the moment...

-- 
Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri, Bioinformatics Developer, Uppsala, Sweden
OpenPGP: url=https://db.tt/2zaB1E7y; id=46082BDF

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Martijn van Duren]

On 03/29/16 13:20, Mihai Popescu wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
Maybe this will be of help: http://www.vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/

Re: OT: True hardware UNIX terminal

[Otto Moerbeek]

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 02:20:35PM +0300, Mihai Popescu wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> This question is somehow off topic but I know there are some readers
> here old enough to shade some light in this matter.
> I want to get and idea of what was or is an old true hardware UNIX
> terminal. I have searched google, but the word "terminal" associated
> with UNIX points most of the time to what we know today as UNIX shell.
> If someone, please, can show me a doc or explain a little bit what was
> a terminal at that moment back in time. I know that it was some kind
> of hardware, maybe RS232 related, used to connect to some main frame.
> But I am unable to find the details. I even lack some tech words to
> search deeper on the web.
> 
> Thank you.

The word to search for is "teletype",

-Otto