
Integrating a VT220 into my life - kragniz
https://drewdevault.com/2016/03/22/Integrating-a-VT220-into-my-life.html
======
paulmd
Quasi-related:

I'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're not updating - so idling or long-running
operations would hardly use any power.

So far the easiest approach I'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.

Ideally, something like the AVR PicoPower microcontrollers would be fantastic
- they run on ultra-low-voltage, eat 1 mA/MIPS, and idle down to basically
nothing (<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.

~~~
nickpeterson
Kind of random, but you made me think of it. I always wanted to do an entire
site in PDF, with all the links opening other pdfs on the same server. That or
postscript...

~~~
Cieplak
Funny you bring that up, I was just reading about this:

 __ _When Steve Jobs left Apple and started NeXT, he pitched Adobe on the idea
of using PS as the display system for his new workstation computers. The
result was Display PostScript, or DPS. DPS added basic functionality to
improve performance by changing many string lookups into 32 bit integers,
adding support for direct output with every command, and adding functions to
allow the GUI to inspect the diagram. Additionally, a set of "bindings" was
provided to allow PS code to be called directly from the C programming
language. NeXT used these bindings in their NeXTStep system to provide an
object oriented graphics system. Although DPS was written in conjunction with
NeXT, Adobe sold it commercially and it was a common feature of most Unix
workstations in the 1990s._ __

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History)

~~~
ricksplat
I remember some fuss being made about this in the early days of OS X, about
"looking glass" (the gui system) using display postscript. Anybody know
anything about that? If it's still a part of OS X or if it fell by the way
side?

~~~
grkvlt
OSX was alleged (by Apple, even) to use PDF as the display language, but
Quartz just has an object model that maps very nicely to PDF, making PDF
transformations and export very easy.

------
AceJohnny2
The VT220 is fascinating as an example of "old" computer technology that still
influences the devices we use on a daily basis.

I've recently had to understand exactly which control characters are sent
between the app and the terminal ( _emulator_ ) for delete and backspace.

Guess which ASCII control characters is sent by the Backspace key on your PC
keyboard? ASCII DEL (0x7F/^?)! 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 "Delete" and used to have the same symbol as on the VT220!

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't have a key for forward delete ;)

For bonus credit, lookup the historical usage of the Linefeed (LF/0xA/^J) and
CarriageReturn (CR/0xD/^M) characters [2]. There was much more than just the
Unix/Mac/Windows divide in text files...

[1] yes, you can swap for ASCII BS (8/^H), but if your app needs that,
consider updating it.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Representations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Representations)

~~~
technofiend
Same with H, J, K, L in VI because of the ADM 3A's escape sequences emitted
when using that terminal's arrow keys.

------
tacostakohashi
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.

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's productive for serious work, and pretty much
_only_ serious work. I'd happily do this again if I could get them for free,
but paying shipping seems a bit much.

~~~
tgflynn
Is the contrast on an old CRT really better than on a modern LCD screen ? I
find that a bit hard to believe but I certainly don't have any way to check.
You could run a plain vanilla window manager with a single xterm if you want
to avoid distractions.

~~~
dsr_
It depends. You can crank up the brightness much higher on a CRT, and so you
can get better contrast in a sunny room. In a dark room, any decent LCD and
any half-decent CRT can get the characters uncomfortably bright.

But it's only 80x25! I may have read megabytes of email and Usenet on such
things, but I always lusted over the big displays of the Suns that could fit
40 rows down, and change character size to match my desires.

So I'm all for adding more screen real estate, but a VT220 isn't my pick for
best way to do that. I prefer a second large monitor in portrait mode.

~~~
tacostakohashi
Sure, CRTs have better contrast than LCDs in general, but monochrome CRTs have
incredible contrast. I guess it's because they don't have separate red / green
/ blue subpixels (2/3rds of which would be off for green on a color CRT).
Also, the particular shade of green phosphor they use is really intense, I
guess they just use the wavelength the eye is most sensitive too, because they
don't care about how it mixes with other colors.

------
darklajid
Looking at that workspace I just need

\- another large monitor

\- my MTG cards collection back

\- at least four magic cubes

\- a nerf gun

and ... a VT220. At least I got that very same keyboard already.

Seriously, that looks like a really nice working space, completely ignoring
the fact that I just learned about sway (I'm on i3 here) in the process.

~~~
displague
You would also need a vial of Uranium Ore.
[http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cP...](http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_4&products_id=782)

------
tacon
I spent many allnighters on a Datapoint 3300 with TECO as the editor in the
early '70s.

[http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-
computer...](http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-
computers/7/178/717)

~~~
julian55
I used to use a VT52 and TECO, later replaced by a VT100. The smooth scrolling
seemed impressive at the time. Not long after that I moved into embedded
software and wrote firmware to emulate these terminals, mostly in Z80
assembler.

------
jamescun
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.

Although my idea was not necessarily integration in to my work flow, more a
dashboard of network/server stats etc.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Author here. I got the pictured one refurbished through vecmar.com, and I just
bought a second one on eBay (for use at home).

~~~
vmorgulis
Very cool post :)

The VT220 supports Sixels:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel)

I wonder if PySixel would work on real hardware:
[https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel](https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel)

HN thread about libsixel:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367)

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
That's pretty cool! It reminds me of a similar project I did called z80e,
which is an emulator for TI calculators [0]. It uses unicode braille to
"render" the screen onto a terminal. Doesn't work on the VT220, though, for
obvious reasons.

[0] [https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e](https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e)

~~~
vmorgulis
Fascinating!

I'm reading the source code of z80e (tui.c). Your idea of using unicode to
display pixels is very interesting. I imagine a fallback mode for libsixel for
terminals not sixel-compatible (or the opposite).

I try ton compile but it fails (first because scas was missing and now I have
an "a2x: not found" in scas).

I appreciate a lot the "multitarget rendering" (emscripten, tui, sdl...).

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
a2x should be provided by the asciidoc package on your distribution. It's used
to compile man pages.

I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support!

~~~
vmorgulis
> a2x should be provided by the asciidoc ...

Yes, thank you (I'm on Debian). I know a bit more after reading the wiki. I
will follow the instructions for the sdk.

> I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support!

Cool! I'm discovering the new world of custom tools for TI (KnightOS, Axe
Parser, OS2...).

I will look at the SDL UI to see what I can do.

BTW z80 is good target for superoptimization and I'm very impressed by your
toolchain and its history :)

------
mrbill
I feel old; I used a Wyse 320 and later a VT220 as my sole / 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.

Even now, I still use a variation on that - a tall terminal window, ssh, and
screen - for the majority of my work.

~~~
technofiend
LOL. What's old is new again, mate. When I worked at Shell in 1989 and 1990 we
were going to throw out Sun 3 desktops as underpowered and useless. Instead I
convinced them to recycle the 3/50s and 3/60s as X terminals by replacing init
and booting straight into X. You could use local X terms and telnet (ssh?
what's that?) to systems, but we found it was faster to use XDM and supply the
desktop from a server like a Sun 4/280.

I would kill to have a modern-day equivalent of the native UNIX desktop I had
on a 4/110 after we ditched the 3/50's: the system had two frame buffers and
you could switch between desktops by crossing the desktop boundary in any
direction. Probably easier to just use two screens these days but at the time
that meant putting two extremely large and deep CRTs on your desk.

Here we are 25 years later and xterm+ssh is still the easiest way to get my
UNIX work done even if everything else (e-mail, productivity apps) is in
Windows. Where's my modern-day NCD X terminal equivalent and unix desktop?

------
wtbob
Honestly, were it not for a web browser I really wouldn't need a GUI at all:
everything else I do is a terminal and emacs (sure, both are running in X, but
I don't really use their GUI features for much).

I remember when I was a kid with access to a local university'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.

~~~
anexprogrammer
We even had a space invaders - ran on vt52s up. Played quite nicely unless
there was a bit of latency and the animations went weird.

No one would let us near the hyper-expensive VAX with huge (21"?) vector
monitor and light pen terminals.

We'd have tried to make asteroids of course :)

------
ChuckMcM
I've long since given away or sold most of my old DEC terminals, I've still
got a couple (VT340, VT340+, VT220 x 2) but the keyboards don't hold up. I'm
down to two working keyboards (an LK201 and an LK401). I've been tempted to
wire up a HID -> VTxx adapter using a simple embedded controller. I'll have to
add that to my list of fun projects for a long weekend.

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 "wide" mode
and get 132 columns but still, the desire to see more screen real estate is a
constant issue.

------
salgernon
At work, I have a Wyse 50 tailing my console log. It's actually really useful
to be able to debug stuff when something goes awry on my development machine.

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
'snake' on it when I'm sick of them using iPads.

In my home "office" I've got my VT102 tied to a PDP/8 simulator on a pi, with
one of these kit front panels:

    
    
      http://obsolescence.wix.com/obsolescence#!pidp-8/cbie
    

(Those were before my time, although I remember playing ADVENT on one (or a
DEC 10?)

------
Gracana
I also have a VT on my desk. Mine's a Wyse 55.
[https://i.imgur.com/ke9Fypp.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ke9Fypp.jpg)

I don't really use it for editing code, I just needed to put something on the
screen that wasn't email or irc (which would reveal semi-sensitive
information.)

------
shmerl
Or you could just run cool-retro-term[1] for the similar visual effect.

[1]: [https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-
term](https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term)

~~~
mark-r
Those examples all seem to have excessive bleed from the bright areas. If
those were physical devices, I'd be turning down the brightness control
immediately.

Anybody come up with a version for iOS or Android yet? Seeing it on a tablet
would be a real juxtaposition.

~~~
ricksplat
Is there a windows one?

~~~
shmerl
Not sure. Since it's based on Qt it can be possible to build it I suppose.

~~~
ricksplat
I just mean any kind of CRT terminal emulator

~~~
shmerl
No idea. I haven't used Windows in a long time already :)

------
johnohara
These things continue to show up in the weirdest places as never-intended
consoles.

Phone switches, network devices, control panels, etc.

There were so many of them leftover from the switch to PC'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.

Thank you Ken Olsen.

------
ayuvar
I wanted to do this, but used VTs are pretty expensive (mostly the cost of
shipping).

I do have an old French Minitel terminal, though - anyone know what the
protocol for those is like?

~~~
mrbill
Easy:

[http://serverfault.com/questions/176822/how-do-i-use-a-
minit...](http://serverfault.com/questions/176822/how-do-i-use-a-minitel-
terminal-as-a-linux-dumb-terminal)

With a RPi:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5CltdZktlw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5CltdZktlw)

------
pippy
I have a VT220, and it's pretty cool apart from the high pitched whining sound
it makes. I think I might have to recap it at some point

~~~
veb
My cochlear implant interferes with it actually. I'm intrigued to figure out
why.

------
mrbill
I can't remember the exact model number, but a company sold gas-plasma-
discharge orange-on-black compact "flat panel" VT220 clones years ago.

I owned one for a while before selling it off (along with a 19" 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!).

~~~
mikestew
Hmm, seem to recall Wyse had a gas-plasma display. The Googles do nothing to
turn up a model #, though. Several vendors made them, with Wyse being the more
popular brand IIRC, and early Toshiba laptops used them (had a 386 with a gas-
plasma display).

~~~
mrbill
Hah! Found my own email post in an google search.

Planar ELT320

[http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/sunhelp/2004-January/019825...](http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/sunhelp/2004-January/019825.html)

------
theglu
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: [https://vimeo.com/159678785](https://vimeo.com/159678785) :)

------
smoyer
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.

------
mrpippy
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!

------
Bud
I've still got an old vt100. Last time I used it, it was still working,
although admittedly, that was in the early 2000s. :)

~~~
kyberias
Lucky you. I also had a working VT100 some years ago. It's a nice device but
rather huge. Still I hope to have it back. It was nice to see those monsters
in The Big Short.

------
dekhn
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's like minecraft (blocky) but you can't build in it.

------
sedatk
I can't help but think about waste of power and radiation of CRT. Green
movement poisoned us for life.

------
Keyframe
I used VT320 (amber) "back in the day" 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/screenplays on it anyways. Something about CRTs that modern
monitors haven't captured.

------
rcarmo
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).

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).

------
threeio
I'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.

+1 for good tmux'ing your output.

------
yankcrime
From a couple of years back, an article on using a VT220 with OS X:
[http://jstn.cc/post/8692501831](http://jstn.cc/post/8692501831)

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

~~~
Jaruzel
I used mostly VT420s in my old VAX sysadmin days - I always preferred the
white text on black ones. Nice thing about VT420s was the split screen dual
serial port mode.

------
KiDD
Whats in the vial?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Uranium ore samples.

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

------
hga
The Ann Arbor Ambassador was the _ne plus ultra_ 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't a _vast_ difference from, say, the VT52 to
it, besides the extra commands that allowed minimizing data transfer (at the
cost of rather hairy redisplay code).

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

~~~
aap_
The VT50 looks so awesome. But I'm afraid they are rare as hell :( At least I
have a VT100 clone (CIT-101)...

