larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (11/18/86)
I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and
came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual.
I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be
the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen!
I thought it might be an amusing aside to see if anyone knows of
a terminal dumber that this one. I nominate this terminal for the All Time
Most Brain-damaged Terminal Award because:
1. It has no bell. Neither audible nor visible.
2. It displays upper-case only and has NO video attributes.
3. While it displays lower-case, it does so by mapping to upper-case -
which in itself is not uncommon for older terminal. But get this:
it generates lower-case characters by _weird_ key mappings; i.e.,
`a' is CTRL-SHIFT-1, `b' is CTRL-SHIFT-2, `j' is CTRL-SHIFT-:,
`k' is CTRL-SHIFT-;, `p' is CTRL-0, `q' is CTRL-1, etc. That's real
intuitive, huh?
4. It has `cursor down', `cursor right' and `cursor left'. It has
NO `cursor up'. These are _commands_; it has no cursor keys.
5. CTRL-S is `display test pattern' and CTRL-Q is `address cursor'.
Real nice x-on/x-off handling...
Can any terminal be dumber than this one???
<> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<> UUCP: {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
<> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/
<> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?" fohl@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Fohl) (11/19/86)
In article <1438@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and > came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. > I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? How old are you, Sonny? You been spoon fed all your life? Used to be this was a dandy relief from the ASR-33. Guess some people are just plain spoiled. Fohlski the Oldie Freddie Way whacks off with a punched card!
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (11/19/86)
In article <1438@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > I thought it might be an amusing aside to see if anyone knows of > a terminal dumber that this one. I nominate this terminal for the All Time > Most Brain-damaged Terminal Award because: > The Heapshit H-8 terminal was a real winner. Not only could it not display lower case, if you sent it lower case letters it printed garbage rather than shifting them to upper case like any sane terminal (like a teletype) would do. In addition, rather than manufacturing key tops with the letters on them. They generated a whole pile of blank keytops and stick on labels for the letters. -Ron
peter@utah-gr.UUCP (Peter S. Ford) (11/19/86)
May we nominate the predecessor to the 1400, the 1200?
avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP (11/20/86)
In article <1438@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and > came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. > I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > I thought it might be an amusing aside to see if anyone knows of > a terminal dumber that this one. I nominate this terminal for the All Time > Most Brain-damaged Terminal Award because: Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's "features" are: 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, please give it to me 2. Bad mangling of ^S/^Q with emacs (gosling's, anyway). 3. Most infuriating feature -- if too much text is being printed, it just hangs and beeps forever. Makes it tough to page through large files. I usually feel like putting my fist through the screen when this happens. Sigh .. Then again, there are regent100s. Andrew Royappa
kludge@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Scott Dorsey) (11/20/86)
In article <1438@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and >came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. >I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be >the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > I thought it might be an amusing aside to see if anyone knows of [ reasons follow ] If this is anything like the old 2000 I was once forced to use, the tilde is used to signal the beginning of an 'escape' code. Any program that produced or required tildes was in serious trouble. -- Scott Dorsey ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (11/20/86)
In article <3078@cbosgd.ATT.COM>, fohl@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Fohl) writes: > > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and > > came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. > > I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be > > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? > > How old are you, Sonny? You been spoon fed all your life? Used to be this > was a dandy relief from the ASR-33. Guess some people are just plain spoiled. > Fohlski the Oldie Wellll, Grampa, I am old enough that once upon a time I interfaced a Cubic Corp. _electromechanical_ digital voltmeter to a 28-RO page printer by using an arrangement of 22-position stepping relays to actually generate the necessary Baudot codes for the 28-RO. The Cubic Corp. voltmeter didn't even have a BCD output - it had contact-closure Gray Code. It worked as an effective data logger with a _truly_ impressive amount of sound effects every ten seconds when it printed a value! I don't consider the 33-ASR to be brain-damaged, and there will always be a fond place for it in my heart. Consider these 33-ASR features: 1. It had a _real_ bell! 2. It could tell its name (^E) as stored in a 22-byte DROM (that's Drum Read Only Memory :-). 3. It had _unlimited_ sequential-access read/write memory (paper tape); this memory was also non-volatile! 4. It could run in character mode or "block mode". 5. It supported x-on/x-off protocol. 6. It could perform combinatorial logic and control external devices (using a stunt box). 7. It sounded impressive when operating. Furthermore, I used to use the 33-ASR as a _standalone_ WORD PROCESSOR back in the days before the term "word processor" even existed! It was quite handy for generating personalized form letters. In a lab I had a sprocket-feed 33-ASR with form-feed option; I would make a paper tape in an endless loop with the body of a letter that had embedded control characters to stop the tape reader for manual entry of personalized data. In fact, about 20 years ago when I was in college I used this very technique to generate "personal telegrams from Santa Claus" which I sold for 50 cents each... <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
tbg@apollo.uucp (Tom Gross) (11/20/86)
> > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and > came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. > I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? I dunno. How many different types of paper can it use?
guido@twitch.UUCP ( G.Bertocci) (11/20/86)
In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu>, avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA > Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- > Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's > "features" are: > > 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, > please give it to me > 2. Bad mangling of ^S/^Q with emacs (gosling's, anyway). > 3. Most infuriating feature -- if too much text is being printed, > it just hangs and beeps forever. Makes it tough to page through > large files. I usually feel like putting my fist through the > screen when this happens. I'm afraid that I must disagree. I use a dmd 5620 everyday and I feel that it is by far the best terminal I have ever used. I suspect that you are missing a great quantity of software which unfortunately I can't provide, but maybe someone else can. The features I like are: 1) Multiple windows, up to 6. 2 1/2 full 24 x 80 screens visible at one time. 2) The ability to emulate several different terminals such as HP. 3) Very good graphics, which allow drawing for text processing. 4) The ability to use any window and log in on multiple machines simultaneously. 5) Use all the intelligence and operate at 19.2K baud. 6) Good integrating with the mouse. To do what I can do with a DMD would require more than 3 normal terminals on my desk at the same time. My productivity with the computer has gone up dramatically since getting a DMD. I suggest you try and find out how to obtain the "layers" software. I'm sure someone on the net knows what is necessary and how to get it running on your machine. Good luck. -- Guido Bertocci ...!ihnp4!houxm!twitch!guido AT&T Bell Labs Holmdel, NJ
VMR@PSUVMA.BITNET (11/20/86)
Is this supposed to be funny?
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (11/20/86)
In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu>, avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: > > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA > Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- > Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's The BLIT is not the dmd 5620. The BLIT had a 68000 in it. The 5620 has a rotten Weeeee32000 in it. BLIT by the way, is not an acronym but a way of pronouncing the name of the bitblt algorithm that it uses. The only official assignment of words to the letters that I've heard of is the Bacon Lettuce and Interactive Tomato. > 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, > please give it to me > 2. Bad mangling of ^S/^Q with emacs (gosling's, anyway). > 3. Most infuriating feature -- if too much text is being printed, > it just hangs and beeps forever. Makes it tough to page through > large files. I usually feel like putting my fist through the > screen when this happens. > From the above, it is obvious that you are you have an old firmware 5620 which you are not running in windows mode. The thing is pointless if you aren't going to run it with the fancy software. It's just a green 70 line vt100 otherwise. Even in stand alone mode, the ^s/^q mangling is a resultg of you not wiring all the signals on your RS-232 cable (or at least jumpering them appropriately if you insist on using three wire rs-232 cables). -Ron
wb8foz@ncoast.UUCP (David Lesher) (11/21/86)
> Article <3078@cbosgd.ATT.COM> From: fohl@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Fohl) | In article <1438@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: | > | > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? | | How old are you, Sonny? You been spoon fed all your life? Used to be this | was a dandy relief from the ASR-33. Guess some people are just plain spoiled. Listen, REAL programmers use a Flexwriter, and keep all source code on that neat paper tape. I remember fixing errors with patches, and I do not mean software patches. Besides, it was easy to compare files --just hold them both it up to the light. -- decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!wb8foz ncoast!wb8foz@case.csnet (ncoast!wb8foz%case.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA) "SERIOUS? Bones, it could upset the entire percentage!"
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (11/21/86)
In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu> avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA >Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- >Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's >"features" are: > > 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, > please give it to me > 2. Bad mangling of ^S/^Q with emacs (gosling's, anyway). > 3. Most infuriating feature -- if too much text is being printed, > it just hangs and beeps forever. Makes it tough to page through > large files. I usually feel like putting my fist through the > screen when this happens. This terminal is an AT&T/Teletype 5620 Dot-Mapped Display (DMD) terminal, not a Blit. The Blit was in effect the DMD's prototype but is not interchangeable with it. "Blit" is NOT an acronym. The real problem here is operator stupidity. He has disabled flow control and is complaining about the consequences. On recent models (firmware revision 2.0 or later), one can disable DC3/DC1 (^S/^Q, XOFF/XON) flow control safely, but ONLY within a layer, not in standalone mode. This is explained in the operator's manual. (One thing that isn't explained is that, on older models, it was important to follow RS-232-C specs in hooking up the terminal. It was because of this that for a while I had the only DMD at BRL that flow-controlled properly.) You should also note that the DMD is really intended for operation in layers mode, with standalone use limited pretty much to just getting logged in before starting up layers operation. Use of ^S/^Q as keyboard commands in EMACS was ALWAYS a mistake. Too many terminals, particularly fancy models, really do require that these characters be reserved for hardware flow control for correct operation, particularly at high baud rates. (The DEC VT-100 was probably the first terminal in widespread use for which this was important.) One should have bound the search and quote commands to other keys than ^S/^Q, for use with all terminals, rather than develop such a bad habit. There are undoubtedly implementations of EMACS and other programs that don't honor flow control even when one has instructed the OS terminal handler to support it ("stty ixon -ixany" on UNIX), but that's a bug, not a feature. Here are our 5620 termcap entries; recent DMDs support reverse video and underlining directly in their resident terminal emulator firmware, although a downloaded terminal emulator could have whatever features it wanted: # NOTE: Move tty5620-1 behind tty5620-2 after all DMDs are upgraded! # # Teletype 5620, firmware version 1.1 (8;7;3) or earlier # The following SET-UP modes are assumed for normal operation: # CR_DEF=CR NL_DEF=INDEX DUPLEX=FULL # Other SET-UP modes may be set for operator convenience or communication # requirements. # This termcap description is for the Resident Terminal Mode. # Hardware tabs are assumed to be set every 8 columns (default). # No delays are specified; use "stty ixon -ixany" to enable DC3/DC1 flow control! TB|tty5620-1|tty5620|dmd|Teletype 5620 with old ROMs:\ :AL=\E[%dL:al=\E[L:am:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:\ :co#88:cr=^M:DC=\E[%dP:dc=\E[P:DL=\E[%dM:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ho=\E[H:\ :IC=\E[%d@:ic=\E[@:it#8:kb=^H:kC=\E[2J:kd=\E[B:kH=\E[70;1H:kh=\E[H:\ :kl=\E[D:kr=\E[C:ku=\E[A:le=^H:li#70:ll=\E[70;H:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:rs=\Ec:\ :sc=\E7:SF=\E[%dS:sf=^J:SR=\E[%dT:sr=\E[T:ta=^I:up=\E[A:vt#3:xo:\ :cl=\E[H\E[J:\ :bs:pt: # # Teletype 5620, firmware version 2.0 (8;7;5) or later # The following SET-UP modes are assumed for normal operation: # DUPLEX=FULL GEN_FLOW=ON NEWLINE=INDEX RETURN=CR # Other SET-UP modes may be set for operator convenience or communication # requirements. # This termcap description is for the Resident Terminal Mode. # Hardware tabs are assumed to be set every 8 columns (default). # No delays are specified; use "stty ixon -ixany" to enable DC3/DC1 flow control! TA|tty5620-2|tty5620|dmd|Teletype 5620 with new ROMs:\ :AL=\E[%dL:al=\E[L:am:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:\ :co#88:cr=^M:DC=\E[%dP:dc=\E[P:DL=\E[%dM:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ho=\E[H:\ :IC=\E[%d@:ic=\E[@:it#8:kb=^H:kC=\E[2J:kd=\E[B:kH=\E[70;1H:kh=\E[H:\ :kl=\E[D:kr=\E[C:ku=\E[A:le=^H:li#70:ll=\E[70H:me=\E[0m:mr=\E[7m:\ :ms:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:rs=\Ec:sc=\E7:se=\E[0m:SF=\E[%dS:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:\ :SR=\E[%dT:sr=\E[T:ta=^I:ue=\E[0m:us=\E[4m:up=\E[A:vt#3:xo:\ :cl=\E[H\E[J:\ :bs:pt:
csg@pyramid.UUCP (Carl S. Gutekunst) (11/21/86)
In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu> avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA >Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- >Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). The problems you mention are all characteristics of the DMD's "standalone" mode, which is a stripped-down terminal emulator intended ONLY for the purpose of booting into something else. Try running the layers window manager, which is the terminal's normal operating mode, and all your problems will magically go away. (It has inverse video, underlines, proper handling of ^S/^Q, and no overrun problems.) As it happens, Teletype did take enough flak for the braindamage in the stand- alone mode that they fixed all these problems anyway, about two years ago. Ask someone to get you a current set of EPROMs for your terminal. > Then again, there are regent100s. Ah, yes. The LOCAL key transmits to the host. Escape sequences turn into caps lock if you happen to be holding down the SHIFT key when they arrive. No CAPS LOCK key to undo the damage. The character generator PROM uses variable width characters, but displays them fixed width, making many character combinations unreadable. Sloppy configuration of the display controller limits descenders. The up and down arrow keys echo locally *and* transmit, but the left and right arrows only transmit. Any characters that arrive while local echoing is in progress cause the local echo be repeated anywhere from 10 to 30 times. HOME is the lower left corner. The backarrow key sends a ^U. There is no back space key, and you have to shift to get a DEL. They RETURN key on the numeric keypad sends a comma. The power-on self-test clears the screen to NULs instead of blanks, and sends a curious encoded string back to the host. ^X causes the terminal to go into power-on self-test. On top of all this, it has the usual annoying quirks of terminals that use Intel display controllers: magic cookie attributes that make the whole screen flash when they're used, and curious "graphics." *NOW* we're talking serious braindamage. :-) <csg>
jaw@aurora.UUCP (James A. Woods) (11/21/86)
# [talking about building a seven-day disappearer ....] "Yes, said Willy McGilly. Who would've thought you could do it with a beer can and two pieces of cardboard? When I was a boy, I used an oatmeal box and a red crayola." -- Raphael Aloysius Lafferty, from "Seven-Day Terror", in '900 Grandmothers' >> > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! >> > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? >> >> How old are you, Sonny? You been spoon fed all your life? Used to be this >> was a dandy relief from the ASR-33. Guess some people are just plain spoiled. > > Wellll, Grampa, I am old enough that once upon a time I interfaced > a Cubic Corp. _electromechanical_ digital voltmeter to a 28-RO page printer > by using an arrangement of 22-position stepping relays to actually generate > the necessary Baudot codes for the 28-RO. ... heavens to betsy -- emeritus math prof. derrick h. lehmer at u.c. berkeley has you all beat. when they unplugged the old 7090 supercomputer to make way for the ginormus cdc 6400 in campbell hall, they gave him the ibm clunker to play with, sans printer, card reader or console tty. merrily he programmed away, flipping the toggle switches and setting address stops for "I", and reading the binary cpu lights for "O". he didn't need no steeenking terminal. but then, as an expert patch cord programmer from whirlwind days, it was no big deal. d.h.l. did the linear congruential random # generator (r.i.p.) this way, i believe. yo, but derrick henry's old man (derrick norman) grew up calculating prime numbers using bicycle wheels and flashlight beams. some folks are just "born to compute"... --j. alien p.s. sure, some of you young whippersnappers did the same thing with your altair. and while we're on the subject of microcomputers setting computer science back twenty years (dijkstra was right!), the bendix g-15 "walkthrough" machine was an aesthetic to behold. p.p.s. remember, kids, if your story is > 15 years old, it's eligible for the afips "annals of the history of computing" journal. right about now, it should be time for the tom ferrin "trace-cut-on-pdp-11/70-backplane-to-make-nargs()-work-right" story.
avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP (11/21/86)
In article <435@twitch.UUCP>, guido@twitch.UUCP ( G.Bertocci) writes: > In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu>, avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: > > > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA > > Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- > > Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's > > "features" are: ..... > > I'm afraid that I must disagree. I use a dmd 5620 everyday and I > feel that it is by far the best terminal I have ever used. I suspect > that you are missing a great quantity of software which unfortunately > I can't provide, but maybe someone else can. > The features I like are: .... > -- > Guido Bertocci ...!ihnp4!houxm!twitch!guido > AT&T Bell Labs > Holmdel, NJ Oh, I was too harsh. It's a good terminal, but just has these few infuriating quirks. People have pointed out to me that we might not have the latest version of ROM in it. We do, indeed, have layers, but I don't use it (I use suntools/sunwindows on a Sun). That'll teach me to be frivolous .. but thanks to the people who had suggestions about fixing my 5620's problems. Andrew Royappa
normt@ihlpa.UUCP (N. R Tiedemann) (11/21/86)
> Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA > ... > 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, > please give it to me According to my Terminal User's Guide dated August 1985, under the character attribute section. The Escape sequence for reverse video is ESC[7;7m (this is 6 characters long). 4;4 is underline 0;0 is normal video. The cryptic method in which it is described does not mean the terminal is brain-damaged, rather the manual writer. I use a blit everyday with its multiple windows and good graphics, I can write text in one, draw my figures in another, troff them in a third and have a "proof" window (which takes troff output and formats everything exactly how it will look in the printed output) going in a fourth window. All while reading netnews. This ability (with the exception of reading netnews) has greatly increased my productivity especially in writing software drivers and assembly language code. I can talk to the computer, and to my emulator board from the same terminal. I hate the keyboard, but that's another story. Norm Tiedemann AT&T Bell Labs ihnp4!ihlpa!normt
berger@clio.Uiuc.ARPA (11/22/86)
The Hazeltine 2000 predates the 1400 by a few years. There was a Teleray video terminal that didn't scroll. At least the ASR 33 (don't blame me, I always hated the things) did that much.
faustus@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) (11/22/86)
I've heard a lot about these Blits, but I've never actually seen one... Is a Blit just a poor man's workstation? Does it communicate with the host via an RS232 connection or something, or is there a higher-speed channel available (ethernet maybe)? How intelligent is it (does it handle creating windows with escape sequences, or does the driver program on the host machine do this)? Wayne
larry@kitty.UUCP (11/22/86)
In article <1727@ncoast.UUCP>, wb8foz@ncoast.UUCP (David Lesher) writes: > Listen, REAL programmers use a Flexwriter, and keep all source code > on that neat paper tape. I remember fixing errors with patches, and > I do not mean software patches. Besides, it was easy to compare files > --just hold them both it up to the light. Didn't some of the Friden Flexowriters use a paper tape code that was NOT ASCII? I remember once seeing a Flexowriter "computer" (I am serious). This consisted of a Flexowriter sitting on top of a cabinet approximately 24" wide by 24" deep by 30" high. Inside the base cabinet was the guts of a mechanical calculator (probably also a Friden) which had a zillion solenoids and contact switches, in addition to a number of relays. This device apparently interfaced the calculator to the Flexowriter, and was definitely a mass-produced product. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <> UUCP: {allegra|bbncca|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> VOICE: 716/688-1231 {hplabs|ihnp4|mtune|seismo|utzoo}!/ <> FAX: 716/741-9635 {G1,G2,G3 modes} "Have you hugged your cat today?"
kchen@imagen.UUCP (11/23/86)
decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!wb8foz writes: > Listen, REAL programmers use a Flexwriter, and keep all source code I think you mean the Frieden Flexowriter, no? I remember using one attached to the Royal Precision Company's RPC-4000 back in the mid-60's at Purdue ( anyone remembers that machine? upper and lower accumulators, germanium transistors [ 2N404's, I think ], drum [ it's only store! ] and an oscilloscope as the register display. Ah, what bliss. ) The Flexowriter sure makes the ASR 33 look modern. But, I have always preferred it's paper tape punch to the junk on the Model 33. As far as glass terminals go, the sickest I have encountered was an OMRON. Puke, bletch! Kok Chen ..!decwrl!imagen!kchen Imagen Corporation
brad@kontron.UUCP (11/23/86)
The most brain-damaged terminal of my experience was IBM's 1407 console typewriter for 1401 systems. The printer had a 2-color ribbon that sort of drifted randomly between black and red. The keyboard was totally unreliable, and would generate parity errors on perhaps 1 out of every 200 keystrokes when freshly tweaked by a CE, and on 1 out of every 20 keystrokes after a week's use. The parity errors were deposited into memory, bringing up a spectacular (by the 1401's modest standards) display of red error lights, completely nuking the job in progress. (And with a memory cycle of around 10-11us, and _hydraulic_ seek actuators on those wonderful 2Mb 1311 disk drives, progress was sloooooooow.) Let's be fair to the Hazelturkey terminals. They were among the first affordable terminals. By today's standards, they are completely brain-damaged, but we were damned glad to have them at the time. On the other hand, they were terribly unreliable (exceeded in flakiness only, perhaps, by LSI ADM-1's).
avr@arthur.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP (11/23/86)
[the 3rd attempt at following up .. will it succeed? the world awaits with bated breath ..] In article <5398@brl-smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes: + In article <1140@mordred.cs.purdue.edu> avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: + > Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA + >Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- + >Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's + >"features" are: + > + > 1. No known termcap escape for reverse vide -- if someone knows it, + > please give it to me + > 2. Bad mangling of ^S/^Q with emacs (gosling's, anyway). + > 3. Most infuriating feature -- if too much text is being printed, + > it just hangs and beeps forever. Makes it tough to page through + > large files. I usually feel like putting my fist through the + > screen when this happens. + + This terminal is an AT&T/Teletype 5620 Dot-Mapped Display (DMD) terminal, + not a Blit. The Blit was in effect the DMD's prototype but is not + interchangeable with it. "Blit" is NOT an acronym. + + The real problem here is operator stupidity. He has disabled flow control + and is complaining about the consequences. On recent models (firmware + revision 2.0 or later), one can disable DC3/DC1 (^S/^Q, XOFF/XON) flow + control safely, but ONLY within a layer, not in standalone mode. This + is explained in the operator's manual. (One thing that isn't explained + is that, on older models, it was important to follow RS-232-C specs in + hooking up the terminal. It was because of this that for a while I had + the only DMD at BRL that flow-controlled properly.) You should also note + that the DMD is really intended for operation in layers mode, with + standalone use limited pretty much to just getting logged in before + starting up layers operation. + OK .. so I'm stupid. As it turns out, when I do "stty everything" it shows " ... -tandem ..," even though I don't explicitly set -tandem (all I set myself are -ctlecho, tostop, and stuff like erase/intr chars). Is this what you mean by "has disabled flow control ?" Well, stty tandem doesn't seem to solve the problem either. And if stty tandem IS supposed to solve the problem, perhaps you could tell me why I don't need to do this on the four or five other terminals I happen to use or have used. I'll ask our hardware technician about whether the proper method of installation was used. + Use of ^S/^Q as keyboard commands in EMACS was ALWAYS a mistake. Too + many terminals, particularly fancy models, really do require that these + characters be reserved for hardware flow control for correct operation, + particularly at high baud rates. (The DEC VT-100 was probably the first + terminal in widespread use for which this was important.) One should + have bound the search and quote commands to other keys than ^S/^Q, for + use with all terminals, rather than develop such a bad habit. There are + undoubtedly implementations of EMACS and other programs that don't honor + flow control even when one has instructed the OS terminal handler to + support it ("stty ixon -ixany" on UNIX), but that's a bug, not a feature. Well, I've become too used to ^S/^Q, and I don't think I'll change until I'm forced to. I don't use emacs on a 5620 now, so it's not critical. In any case, I have this vague notion that I should ideally be able to use any character that I can generate from the keyboard as an editing character (i.e. I should be able to make the terminal use some other character instead) but this isn't a particularly strong feeling, I guess. + Here are our 5620 termcap entries; recent DMDs support reverse video + and underlining directly in their resident terminal emulator firmware, + although a downloaded terminal emulator could have whatever features it + wanted: The so string doesn't produce reverse video on my terminal, so as other people have already pointed out to me it must be the case that our 5620s around here need a firmware upgrade. Thanks, Andrew Royappa ihnp4!purdue!avr
karl@cbrma.UUCP (11/24/86)
>avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu writes: >> Don't know about Most brain-damaged, but the BLIT (dmd 5620, AKA >> Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal (I think) -- it should stand for BLAT -- >> Bell Labs Annoying Terminal). I'm on a BLAT right now, and some of it's >> "features" are: Mercifully, please note that BLIT is not an acronym; it's derived from the bitblt operation. Also, the BLIT is not the same as a DMD. The DMD was derived from work done with the BLIT. You are apparently using either an older DMD with broken firmware (circa 2 years ago), or aren't using the layers software for multi-window capabilities. Or both, of course. Get the latest stuff; the world improves much with it. guido@twitch.UUCP writes: > To do what I can do with a DMD would require more than 3 normal >terminals on my desk at the same time. My productivity with the >computer has gone up dramatically since getting a DMD. That's what I had to do to get around to getting a DMD. When the 4th vt100 showed up on my desk, my boss finally decided that some bucks should be spent on DMDs. My productivity went way, way up with the DMD, too. But I hit an interesting psychological limit the other day. I normally have 5 shells running and 1 system monitor, in order to see just how much of a pig cbrma can be. I am frequently cu'd out in 2 of those 5 shells to other systems. Last week, I had this arrangement, with 3 local shells and 2 cu sessions outbound. In one local shell and in both remote systems, I was running GNU Emacs with between 2 and 4 M-x shell subprocesses running. All told, I had 13 or 14 shells active at various CPUs. I was typing away fairly well, getting lots done on all the systems, and then I abruptly selected one window, looked over what I had been doing there...and didn't have the faintest idea what it was I had intended to do next. Very strange - I had never had that happen before. Now, there was a study done a number of years back on "the magic number 7 plus or minus 2," which made the point that Joe Average can handle approximately 7 tasks at one time in his head. Sometimes it's only 5, and sometimes it can get as high as 9. Going higher than 9 is considered rare, maybe impossible. And I proved it conclusively to myself by trying (and failing) to use 13 shells. But it was interesting that it took me maybe 45 minutes of doing this sort of work before I finally got out of sync. I have an impression that if I did that sort of thing a lot, my tolerance for excessive windows would go up. Anybody ever do any work in this area? Care to postulate and pontificate on the possibilities? -- Karl Kleinpaste
kludge@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Scott Dorsey) (11/24/86)
In article <1447@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > Didn't some of the Friden Flexowriters use a paper tape code that >was NOT ASCII? It was Baudot. 5-channel tty code. " When they put the Apostle's Creed in It was soon replaced by Friden Saint Peter has the system well in hand. There's a nametape sent from hell In the ATR as well Sending letters of condolence to the damned." -- S. Kelly-Bootle The Friden CREED papertape handling system was one of the most advanced papertape systems of its time. It used 5-channel Baudot tape, still in use over teletype lines today. -- Scott Dorsey Kaptain_Kludge ICS Programming Lab (Where old terminals go to die), Rich 110, Georgia Institute of Technology, Box 36681, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!kludge
rickb@bucket.UUCP (Rick Bensene) (11/24/86)
> > Didn't some of the Friden Flexowriters use a paper tape code that > was NOT ASCII? > I remember once seeing a Flexowriter "computer" (I am serious). > This consisted of a Flexowriter sitting on top of a cabinet approximately > 24" wide by 24" deep by 30" high. Inside the base cabinet was the guts > of a mechanical calculator (probably also a Friden) which had a zillion > solenoids and contact switches, in addition to a number of relays. This > device apparently interfaced the calculator to the Flexowriter, and was > definitely a mass-produced product. I don't go back far enough to know of a relay version, but I was associated in my very younger days (next-door nieghbor who baby-sat my brother and I when we were quite young) with some people who owned a company that calibrated daily tanks. The job involved taking calibrated amounts of water, and measuring the depth of the water in the tank using accurate 'dip sticks', and then from the experimental data, use interpolation to generate a chart which would give the number of pounds of milk in the tank for any dipstick reading. Anyway, back to the point...these folks had a very interesting machine the back room of their house which was a Friden Flexowriter with a box bolted on the back of it which was as wide and tall as the Flexowriter, and added about 9 inches to its depth. The box was full of boards with transistors all over them, and had a small array of core memory. The box was capable of simple math, mainly addition and subtraction of fixed size, fixed point numbers. It was 'programmable' by reading a punched tape into core, but had very limited capabilites. When they first purchased the box, I recall the Friden people being out there for days on end trying to figure out how to program the box to make it properly do the job. Turns out that the job was THE MOST complex program they had ever written for the machine, and they had to go through some real gyrations to make it fit. I later wrote about 100 lines of BASIC on a North*Star Horizon that did the job infinitely faster, and in a much friendlier environment. It was an incredible machine for its time (late 1960's), but hopelessly outdated just a few years after it was purchased. I would be willing to bet that the relay-filled box mentioned in Larry L.'s posting above was the precursor to the transistorized version that so intrigued me in my younger days (probably responsible in part for my intense interest in computing machines as a youngster). -- Rick Bensene ..tektronix!tekig4!rickb (work) ..tektronix!reed!{omen, percival}!bucket!rickb (home) USMail: 1815 N.E. 148th, Portland, Oregon 97230
firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) (11/24/86)
> > I was doing some housecleaning in a storeroom the other day, and > came across a Hazeltine 1400 video display terminal - complete with manual. > I looked in the manual, and came to the conclusion that this has to be > the most brain-damaged terminal I have ever seen! > > Can any terminal be dumber than this one??? Well, I nominate the terminal I'm now using. This started life as a standard DEC terminal, until the hackers got hold of it . The Tilde key generates a funny escape code. The key called 'hold screen' generates a tilde . The 'set up' key generates an escape code. There is NO way to change the terminal characteristics - not even to get reverse video - without invoking a huge and totally undocumented window manager . The numeric pad is mapped to escape codes. You guessed it - no way to remap any key And the ULTIMATE prize for total lunacy: the 'Do' key breaks into the Unixoid kernel of your workstation and you're at adb command level. Can you say user-surly? I thought you could.
gene@cooper.UUCP (Eugene Kwiecinski ) (11/24/86)
One terminal which I would NOT like to write a 'terminfo' entry for is
the venerable Datapoint 3600.
In its defense, I would like to say that is well built. From the power
supply to the main board to the chassis, this sucker's built like a tank.
Rarely before have I seen such a well put together piece of equipment.
Still, when I was trying to interface this with a homebuilt computer,
I had nothing but trouble. Without a manual, I had enough trouble. Add
that to funny escape codes for cursor positioning, etc, I was about to
scream and just give up.
The fact that this terminal is a dinosaur among terminals gives rise to
the fact that a whole board of TTLs could be replaced with just one or
two LSI chips. Anyway, it DIDN'T have automatic wraparound, or even a
basic scrolling! Write to the end of the screen and it would just keep
overwriting the last line! Yecch! I, for one, did not want to keep track
of the current line, etc, just to have a normal scrolling.
The shift-lock was just that (as opposed to a caps-lock). Hit the S-L,
type '12345', and you would get '!"#$%'. Pretty awful if you're not used
to old style typewriters.
If they (Datapoint) would have fixed these bugs, and given me some sort
of clue on how to use the terminal escape sequences, that wouldn't have
been such a bad machine. But the facts speak for themselves. My home-
built doesn't have 'terminfo' or anything even approaching that. I have
used mapping to get the right output codes, so I'm stuck...
Bye,
Gene
Usenet (UUCP) Address:
cucard\
psuvax!cmcl2\
{psuvax1!princeton, ucbvax!ulysses}!allegra>!phri!cooper!gene
columbia/
{decwrl!ihnp4, harvard!seismo, decvax}!philabs/
(Whew!)
PS: If anyone happens to have a 'terminfo' entry for one of these little
beasties, PLEASE beam me over a copy. Please?
Thanx in advance.gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (11/25/86)
In article <489@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> avr@mordred.cs.purdue.edu (Andrew V. Royappa) writes: >... And if stty tandem IS supposed to solve the problem ... No! Wrong direction! In a System V environment, one would use "stty ixon -ixany". Since you appear to be in a Berkeley environment, you should use "stty dec" or equivalent; what is needed are the "start" and "stop" characters defined as ^Q and ^S, respectively, and "decctlq" ON. If you have software that runs in "raw" mode, it will probably break since Berkeley raw mode disables flow control; such software should be changed to honor the original flow control mode setting.
shap@sfsup.UUCP (J.S.Shapiro) (11/25/86)
stty -tandem isn't what you need to do the flow control. The problem is that you have flow control turned off at the terminal. Look under the Host Options setup at Pass Flow. It should be yes. Jon Shapiro
knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) (11/27/86)
> I don't consider the 33-ASR to be brain-damaged, and there will > always be a fond place for it in my heart. Consider these 33-ASR features: > [deleted] > <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York You left out one of the 33's best features -- you could touch-type programming expressions on it, since such left-field (nowadays) chars as \, [, ], ^ were just shifts of N, L, K, etc. Today this would be called a "chord keyboard." Instead, you have to look at the keyboard constantly while entering a C program. Of course, the 33 didn't even have {}~, so you didn't have to worry about them -- but then C didn't exist either! -- Mike J Knudsen ...ihnp4!ihwpt!knudsen Bell Labs (AT&T) (312)-979-4132 (work) You think AT&T cares about CoCos, music, or Star Trek? No? Then, these opinions must be all mine!
spray@smu (11/27/86)
People who think ASR-33s or Flexowriters epitomize bad hard-copy terminals have led a sheltered life. I once saw the console typewriter for an ICL 1900 clone, made in Poland under license. That's what it was, a typewriter, complete with a platten that went back and forth and printing hammers! Rob Spray S&M Univ. ...convex!smu!spray
jeffj@sfsup.UUCP (J.S.Jonas) (12/02/86)
> People who think ASR-33s or Flexowriters epitomize bad hard-copy > terminals have led a sheltered life. I once saw the console > typewriter for an ICL 1900 clone, made in Poland under license. > That's what it was, a typewriter, complete with a platten that > went back and forth and printing hammers! Ummm, perhaps your memory doesn't go back far enough, but I once played with OLD flexowriters that were just that -- typewriters with solenoids for each key. Yup - the keyboard was not switches but little levers like a manual typewriter. The baudot code corresponded with keystrokes like shift up/down, ribbon red/black. I guess that they took a manual typewriter and added solenoids and switches. It was fun to see the little hammers jumping up at 10CPS, with the carriage swishing back and forth. Even sillier was the General Precision LGP-21 computer to which it was attached. It had NO CORE - just a fixed head disk (not drum). The accumulator, accumulator extension, instruction address register and instruction register were recirculated on the outermost track by 4 heads placed evenly around the circumference. The baudot codes corresponded to the 5 bit opcode (B for 'bring' - load the accumulator, S for 'save' - store the accumulator, A for 'add', etc...). The display was an oscilloscope which displayed the square waves for the accumulator, instruction register and instruction address register. I guess that it was a serial machine -- there weren't enough transistors to support parallel byte manipulation. The manual mentioned a card that was used to find the optimal data addresses to use so that execution was done with the least disk rotation. (card meaning a cardboard device for manual use, not a PCB). That's why SOAP was used by bigger machines. Jeff 'historian for a quarter of a decade' Skot {ihnp4 | allegra | cbosgd} attunix ! jeffj
dave@viper.UUCP (David Messer) (12/08/86)
In article <880@sfsup.UUCP> jeffj@sfsup.UUCP (J.S.Jonas) writes: > >Even sillier was the General Precision LGP-21 computer to which it was >attached. It had NO CORE - just a fixed head disk (not drum). >The accumulator, accumulator extension, instruction address register >and instruction register were recirculated on the outermost track by >4 heads placed evenly around the circumference. The baudot codes >corresponded to the 5 bit opcode (B for 'bring' - load the accumulator, >S for 'save' - store the accumulator, A for 'add', etc...). >The display was an oscilloscope which displayed the square waves >for the accumulator, instruction register and instruction address >register. I guess that it was a serial machine -- there weren't enough >transistors to support parallel byte manipulation. >The manual mentioned a card that was used to find the optimal data addresses >to use so that execution was done with the least disk rotation. Sounds like you have the new and improved model. I have an LGP-30 in my garage that had 128 TUBES instead of transistors. The main memory is, as you said, a fixed head drum containing 4096x31 bit words. The instruction set has a total of eight instructions, including add, subtract, multiply and divide (the original RISC machine). Error handling is pretty simple, if you divide by zero the machine STOPS and waits for you to fix it. The software I got with the machine is pretty impressive though, two ALGOL-58 (ALGOL-58?) compilers/interpreters and an optimizing assembler (optimizing in that it trys to place instructions around the drum so that there is a minimum of delay between them.) A properly optimized program can run as fast as 200 instructions/second. By the way, if anyone wants their own antique computer, (perhaps starting their own museum?) I would be willing to part with the LGP-30 ($60,000 new price) for $0.00 and you pay the shipping. I haven't had the heart to scrap the thing, but I am sick of transporting it everytime I move. Software included of course. (By the way, it worked the last time I turned it on, but I make no gaurentees.) -- Disclaimer: | David Messer I'm always right and I never lie. | Software Consultant My company knows this and agrees | UUCP: ihnp4!quest!viper!dave with everything I say. | ihnp4!meccts!viper!dave
rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (12/10/86)
If you want a dumb terminal, our KDT, has got to be it. The "terminal" is an unencoded keyboard with a shift register, and a Ball monitor with 422/TTL level shifters. No firmware, rom, or processor. They connect to an external processor that even does the video display. The external processor drives up to 16 KDT's. The KDT/processor combination, however is very nice. In addition to a fully programmable keymap, there are 3-7 keys that are used by the thumb. My favorite uses one for tab, one for space, and one for control. The DVORAK mapping is especially nice :-). Rex B.
stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman) (12/10/86)
Many of the so-called "brain-damaged" terminals were quite intelligent for their time. My vote for "worst for its time" is the IBM3101. a) Various keys don't work in various modes. There is no mode in which all the keys can be used. b) The caps-lock "key" is a switch under the cover . . . c) When in caps-lock mode, you can't type "`" or "|" (you pry open the little cover . . .) d) Accidentally pressing one the keys arbitrarily defined as "invalid" for the particular mode you are in results in a LOCK error. A special 2 key combination is required to reset it. e) In block mode, only a transmit of the entire screen can be initiated by the host (data / modified data only does work). The user, however, can send in message, line, or screen mode. f) It weighs a least 50 pounds (well maybe I'm exaggerating.) g) All these problems required massive firmware programming effort to create. Any quick & simple emulator on a PC is quite usable! -- Stuart D. Gathman <..!seismo!dgis!bms-at!stuart>
frank@dvm.UUCP (12/11/86)
My nomination is the late, great Teletype 43. A wonderous device which used (and still uses -- we have an example) its own strange paper. The print area of the paper is 8 1/2 by 11 -- if you tear off the perforations and hold the resulting sheet sideways. Top off this wonderous state of affairs with the ability to blaze along at 300 bps while printing and emitting noise not unlike an angry horse fly and you've got a real winner. I'll say this for it: the darned thing outlasted all of the terminals (printers and CRTs) we've had. -- Frank ...!inhp4!allegra!phri!orville!dvm!frank