Integrating a VT220 into my life

Quasi-related:<p>I&#x27;ve always wanted an ultra-low-power dumb terminal using eInk paper displays - something you could hit days of runtime with using a small battery pack. eInk uses no power when they&#x27;re not updating - so idling or long-running operations would hardly use any power.<p>So far the easiest approach I&#x27;ve found is using a hacked Kindle with an attached keyboard. You can run a terminal client on it and ssh into another system, which I think is a sensible access mode.<p>Ideally, something like the AVR PicoPower microcontrollers would be fantastic - they run on ultra-low-voltage, eat 1 mA&#x2F;MIPS, and idle down to basically nothing (&lt;1ma active and a few dozen microamps during sleep). ssh is probably out of the question but I could toss a VT100 stack on it. Unfortunately the eInk display is the hard part there - most eInk parts have very poor documentation.

The VT220 is fascinating as an example of &quot;old&quot; computer technology that still influences the devices we use on a daily basis.<p>I&#x27;ve recently had to understand exactly which control characters are sent between the app and the terminal (<i>emulator</i>) for delete and backspace.<p>Guess which ASCII control characters is sent by the Backspace key on your PC keyboard? ASCII DEL (0x7F&#x2F;^?)! All modern terminal emulators on Linux and OS X (including the Linux console, xterm and libvte-based terminals, OS X Terminal.app and iTerm2) now default to sending DEL [1] when you press the Backspace key... now it makes much more sense that on a Mac keyboard, that key is labeled &quot;Delete&quot; and used to have the same symbol as on the VT220!<p>Oh, and what character is sent when you press the (forward) Delete key? Why, the escape sequence 1B 5B 33 7E (ESC [ 3 ~), of course :) Because the terminals we emulate didn&#x27;t have a key for forward delete ;)<p>For bonus credit, lookup the historical usage of the Linefeed (LF&#x2F;0xA&#x2F;^J) and CarriageReturn (CR&#x2F;0xD&#x2F;^M) characters [2]. There was much more than just the Unix&#x2F;Mac&#x2F;Windows divide in text files...<p>[1] yes, you can swap for ASCII BS (8&#x2F;^H), but if your app needs that, consider updating it.<p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Newline#Representations" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Newline#Representations</a>

I had a Wyse dumb terminal attached to my main Linux workstation for a few years in the late 90s, back when such things were fairly easy to pick up for free.<p>Its not to be sneezed at for doing serious programming work. The green on black, text only CRT was super high contrast (especially compared to any modern LCD), and the complete lack of distractions that come with a multitasking desktop environment (email notifications, chat, web browsers, Facebook, etc) mean that it&#x27;s productive for serious work, and pretty much <i>only</i> serious work. I&#x27;d happily do this again if I could get them for free, but paying shipping seems a bit much.

Looking at that workspace I just need<p>- another large monitor<p>- my MTG cards collection back<p>- at least four magic cubes<p>- a nerf gun<p>and ... a VT220. At least I got that very same keyboard already.<p>Seriously, that looks like a really nice working space, completely ignoring the fact that I just learned about sway (I&#x27;m on i3 here) in the process.

I spent many allnighters on a Datapoint 3300 with TECO as the editor in the early &#x27;70s.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerhistory.org&#x2F;revolution&#x2F;mainframe-computers&#x2F;7&#x2F;178&#x2F;717" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.computerhistory.org&#x2F;revolution&#x2F;mainframe-computer...</a>

I&#x27;ve long since given away or sold most of my old DEC terminals, I&#x27;ve still got a couple (VT340, VT340+, VT220 x 2) but the keyboards don&#x27;t hold up. I&#x27;m down to two working keyboards (an LK201 and an LK401). I&#x27;ve been tempted to wire up a HID -&gt; VTxx adapter using a simple embedded controller. I&#x27;ll have to add that to my list of fun projects for a long weekend.<p>Generally though when using them on older machines I am amazed at how frustrating 80 columns of 24 (or 25) lines can be! Sure you can do &quot;wide&quot; mode and get 132 columns but still, the desire to see more screen real estate is a constant issue.

I was discussing an identical project with a coworker a while back, and have been stalking ebay for VT2X0s occasionally since. However they seem to be incredibly rare in the UK, and all the listings shown require shipping from the US with monstrous fees.<p>Although my idea was not necessarily integration in to my work flow, more a dashboard of network&#x2F;server stats etc.

I feel old; I used a Wyse 320 and later a VT220 as my sole &#x2F; main IO device in 1995-96 - connected to a SPARCstation 10 via a multi-port serial box at 9600 baud, with heavy use of GNU Screen.<p>Even now, I still use a variation on that - a tall terminal window, ssh, and screen - for the majority of my work.

Honestly, were it not for a web browser I really wouldn&#x27;t need a GUI at all: everything else I do is a terminal and emacs (sure, both are running in X, but I don&#x27;t really use their GUI features for much).<p>I remember when I was a kid with access to a local university&#x27;s systems, and the only way to do anything was with dumb terminals. I telnetted to MUDs, FTPed software, read Usenet — in a lot of ways those dumb terminals were smarter than my current computer. Sure, I can still do all that, but the magic is gone.

At work, I have a Wyse 50 tailing my console log. It&#x27;s actually really useful to be able to debug stuff when something goes awry on my development machine.<p>For fun at home I have an ADDS Regent 25 with a raspberry pi inside. Turn it on, it boots to Debian and binds to the network. I force the kids to play &#x27;snake&#x27; on it when I&#x27;m sick of them using iPads.<p>In my home &quot;office&quot; I&#x27;ve got my VT102 tied to a PDP&#x2F;8 simulator on a pi, with one of these kit front panels:<p><pre><code> http:&#x2F;&#x2F;obsolescence.wix.com&#x2F;obsolescence#!pidp-8&#x2F;cbie </code></pre> (Those were before my time, although I remember playing ADVENT on one (or a DEC 10?)

I also have a VT on my desk. Mine&#x27;s a Wyse 55. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;ke9Fypp.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;ke9Fypp.jpg</a><p>I don&#x27;t really use it for editing code, I just needed to put something on the screen that wasn&#x27;t email or irc (which would reveal semi-sensitive information.)

Or you could just run cool-retro-term[1] for the similar visual effect.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Swordfish90&#x2F;cool-retro-term" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Swordfish90&#x2F;cool-retro-term</a>

These things continue to show up in the weirdest places as never-intended consoles.<p>Phone switches, network devices, control panels, etc.<p>There were so many of them leftover from the switch to PC&#x27;s and they always seemed to work (once you got the parity right). Usually in some closet somewhere, balanced on top of a box with the keyboard leaning against the wall. Need a power cable? Grab one from a PC, use it to power up, change some settings, turn it off and put the cable back.<p>Thank you Ken Olsen.

I wanted to do this, but used VTs are pretty expensive (mostly the cost of shipping).<p>I do have an old French Minitel terminal, though - anyone know what the protocol for those is like?

I have a VT220, and it&#x27;s pretty cool apart from the high pitched whining sound it makes. I think I might have to recap it at some point

I can&#x27;t remember the exact model number, but a company sold gas-plasma-discharge orange-on-black compact &quot;flat panel&quot; VT220 clones years ago.<p>I owned one for a while before selling it off (along with a 19&quot; gas plasma flat panel for a MicroVAX that I got at Goodwill for $25 - now THAT was a steal that I turned into a nice profit!).

For our next LAN party this week, we did a small player interface to welcome users using VT220. Here is it working with an acoustic coupler throught a field phone: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;159678785" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;159678785</a> :)

I recycled a couple of nice Hazeltine terminals about eight years ago ... About three years ago I was wishing that I had them back. Projects like this as well as their use (with a serial multiplexer) as the console for a rack of servers remind me of the good old days.

I picked up a VT220 a year ago at an estate sale, the previous owner was using it with amateur radio gear. Prices (especially including shipping) seem prohibitively expensive otherwise!

I&#x27;ve still got an old vt100. Last time I used it, it was still working, although admittedly, that was in the early 2000s. :)

I bought an apple IIe for nostalgia and one of the first things I did was hook up a null modem cable to the serial card and make it a linux terminal. I was able to use google via elinks. My kids love the various games like ultima because it&#x27;s like minecraft (blocky) but you can&#x27;t build in it.

I can&#x27;t help but think about waste of power and radiation of CRT. Green movement poisoned us for life.

I used VT320 (amber) &quot;back in the day&quot; a lot. I wish I could find one to hook up to my workstation or an SGI Octane2 (for full retro feeling to it). I would only write text&#x2F;screenplays on it anyways. Something about CRTs that modern monitors haven&#x27;t captured.

Wow. I used VT220s and 230s in college, and remember those days fondly (they were hooked up to VAXen, and there was nothing quite like it, really).<p>I wonder if I could get a keyboard and enclosure someplace and bolt on an LCD panel from a netbook (if only for the sake of power consumption).

I&#x27;ve had a handful of these over the years, initially in my home racks and workstation, later migrating to my datacenter so I had an always on stats screen showing traffic, alerts, etc.<p>+1 for good tmux&#x27;ing your output.

From a couple of years back, an article on using a VT220 with OS X: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jstn.cc&#x2F;post&#x2F;8692501831" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jstn.cc&#x2F;post&#x2F;8692501831</a>

Darn, I just got rid of a VT420 that I had kept for years. That would have been a really cool (geeky) project. :(

Whats in the vial?

That is what one could call Nice (R). :)

The Ann Arbor Ambassador was the <i>ne plus ultra</i> at the end of that age, it did up to 60 lines of 80 characters, had the fancy features to minimize data transfer, and could do it all at 9600 baud. The VT220 was a nice evolution of the clunky VT100, but there wasn&#x27;t a <i>vast</i> difference from, say, the VT52 to it, besides the extra commands that allowed minimizing data transfer (at the cost of rather hairy redisplay code).

I want my VT50 back. 80x11, capitals only, and cool mechanical keys.