Talk:VT100

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Confirmation for the Heath comment?

The only Heathkit terminals I ever saw emulated the DEC VT52 and later the VT100. The only X3.64 support on them was in their VT100 emulation... the earlier VT52-compatibles didn't support it. --24.27.74.244 17:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ANSI X3.64

Why does ANSI X3.64 redirect here? That seems strange. Where did the original article go? Kim Bruning 11:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was no original article. This is currently the most relevant article to X3.64, but yes, we could do with a stub instead of the redirect. --StuartBrady 12:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It redirects to ANSI escape code, which is closer. Tedickey (talk) 11:22, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pic?

Anyone have a pic to add? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.236.216.252 (talk • contribs) .

A photograph would be nice. (Make sure it's GFDL/CC/PD, though!) --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Concur -- I had to concern myself with VT-100 compatibility for a number of years, but I've never actually seen one... AnonMoos 18:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could swear blind that Bangor University (Wales) still had a little herd of these in it's science library when I left in 2003 - definitely VT100s not 220s, too... maybe they're still there, given that they would have been about 20 years old already, why throw them away at 24? (They do have a small computer science museum exhibit area there, perhaps they're part of a living museum?)

Very nice, quick and easy to use for browsing the library catalogue & remote ones, checking email or text-based web browsing (!), knew they were old but never realised they were quite so ancient. Was round that way quite recently but dunno if I'll get a chance to go past again anytime soon unfortunately, but if I do I'll see if I can nip in and grab a picture or two. -tahrey

VT100 Assembly

My first job out of school was at Digital's Albuquerque facility where the VT100s were assembled. Oh the memories......... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.5.125 (talk) 03:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rock on! Those were great machines, which I got to know in the late '80s. The key action was very smooth. Afalbrig (talk) 09:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate character set

The box drawing characters article lists some of the VT100 alternate characters, but not all of them, and I'm not sure if they should be listed somewhere. I'm also not sure if they would belong here, or in the article on X3.64 — IIRC, ECMA-48 refers to an alternate character set, but does not list the actual characters. The characters, as copied from an xterm:

	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
6	◆	▒	␉	␌	␍	␊	°	±	␤	␋	┘	┐	┌	└	┼	⎺
7	⎻	─	⎼	⎽	├	┤	┴	┬	│	≤	≥	π	≠	£	·

—StuartBrady (Talk) 14:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

VT100.net has several manuals which show these characters. Outside of the line-drawing characters, and the ones that the curses library uses, they're of limited interest. Tedickey (talk) 15:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Color?

I'm guessing VT100 had a monochrome display, but what color was it? Green on black? Wipe (talk) 04:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depended on the phosphor used. DEC's looked (to me) as if they had a slight blueish or cyan tint. It was quite noticeable when the display was put into reverse video, making the "white" fill the background rather than the text. There's probably a reliable source for that color.... Clones such as the CIT Itoh tended to be whiter (the ones I knew about, at any rate - this example shows blue). Tedickey (talk) 11:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see, thanks. There were terminal clones made in the Soviet Union also, their phosphor could have been anything then. :) I was just wondering what the original Tetris would have looked like... Wipe (talk) 19:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Tetris topic says the game came out in 1985, which would have been targeted toward IBM PC's, e.g., with CGA graphics. That's a lot different from a VT100 running on a 9600bd serial connection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tedickey (talk • contribs) 00:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I mean the very first Tetris (before a PC version), said to have been written for "Elektronika 60", a PDP-11 clone. Of course, it would require some detective work to find out exactly which kind of terminal Pajitnov used. He probably gets a lot of e-mail these days. ;) Wipe (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The topic says - 15IE-00-013 terminal - which on the first link http://www.blinkenlights.de/arcade/links.en.html notes that it was monochrome (green) 24x80 Tedickey (talk) 21:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, good. That page mentions the 15IE-0003 terminal and the Elektronika 60 article mentions a 15IE-00-013, likely a clone of a later terminal in the VT series. The Tetris article has a link to Vadim Gerasimov's writing where he actually describes the original game: "The MS DOS version is quite different from the Electronica 60 draft which initially had just the glass and a score count. That version worked on a monochromatic (green/black) alphanumeric display." I'll add that information to the Tetris article. This VT100 article could still use some improvement, though. Wipe (talk) 22:20, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to the VT100 Series Video Terminal Technical Manual, VT100s used P4 phosphor, which is white. —Vt100 (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

VT100 vs Heath

The comment appears to be referring to the Heath Company H19, which was announced in 1979.

While X3.64 is said to have been based on VT100, it (and in turn X3.64 the basis for ISO 6429) do not implement all of VT100, e.g., the scrolling. (It would be nice to have a reliable source giving the text of X3.64). The comment in context can be rephrased to point out that the H19 was perhaps the first terminal based on X3.64 Tedickey (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shuford for example, gives this, which contains sequences that the VT100 did not support. Tedickey (talk) 00:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The more I read that entire sentence, the more I dislike it. It appears to be giving the impression that Heath beat DEC to market with a terminal that supported X3.64 sequences, but the H19 doesn't fit that bill. And what does "the standard proposed by ANSI in X3.64" mean? X3.64 is a standard, whether the market took it up or not (and of course it did, in a big way). —Vt100 (talk) 12:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted, VT100 was not based on X3.64, since it preceded it (and they're distinct, each containing features not in the other). So a clarification or rewording of the sentence should point that out. Heath's terminal is an example of one that came after the standard and incorporated features (and again, it's not the same as the standard). Tedickey (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The VT100 User Guide claims conformance to X3.64-1977 in chapter 3. —Vt100 (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's marketing. The design and implementation was done the year before the standard was released. (Conformance means only that it doesn't implement codes which conflict with the standard, does not guarantee any particular amount of adherance beyond that. It would be interesting to construct a table of codes from different conforming terminals which conflict with each other ;-) Tedickey (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have emphasised the important bit: X3.64-1977. The standard was apparently already issued when the VT100 was released. Googling suggests that either this is a common typo (from rushing to print perhaps?) or that X3.64-1979 was actually the second issue of this standard. Off the top of my head, the only conflict between X3.64 and VT100 is ESC Z (DECID), which was a VT52-compatibility hack that was only discarded in the VT500 Series. (Your winky duly noted!) —Vt100 (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google suggests, but there are a lot of suggestions, e.g., these which suggest that there is some confusion with ANSI X3.41-1977: [1], [2], per Shuford's comment Tedickey (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm quoting a DEC manual at least, not Joe Random's page-o-confusion, and bear in mind that any reference from after mid-1979 would be bound to cite X3.64-1979 rather than -1977 (as the VT220 manuals do, for instance). I have X3.64-1979 in front of me and it doesn't mention a previous version, but I can't be sure that it would do, if there had been one. So it appears we still have no way of rephrasing that sentence in a way that is better backed up. Ho hum. —Vt100 (talk) 20:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there were a revision, I'd expect to come across some comment about it, as I've seen about X3.4 Tedickey (talk) 22:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]