jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson) (01/06/85)
Both the Micromint Term-mite and the Digital Research terminal boards look to be reasonably good. The Term-mite is about $250 while the ZRT-80 is $129.... a significant cost difference. Can anyone sway me towards either one of these boards? Any personal experiences that would be helpful in selecting a REAL inexpensive terminal board? seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!jnelson - John
cem@intelca.UUCP (Chuck McManis) (01/10/85)
Having built several ZRT-80 boards (now $99) to upgrade some really dumb
terminals in school I offer the following comments :
The ZRT is based on the Z-80 as the controlling processor. This allows easy
custimization of the software/firmware (supplied on 8" disk) on a CP/M system.
The TERMITE uses a national chip that is not well supported in terms of tools
available for HOME computers. The ZRT-80 can have several more pages of video
ram added, with the advantage of giving either larger displays or scroll back
capability. The TERMITE does have Double high and Wide characters which
allows true VT100 emulation, the ZRT80 does not. The ZRT80 emulates the
Heath mode only (Not the ANSI mode) of a H19 terminal but could be rewritten
to add the ANSI 3.64 features. The TERMite board is physically smaller but
not by much. Serial communication capabilities are the same.
Bottom line : For what you would pay for the TERMmite you can have a complete
Terminal based on the ZRT80.
--Chuck
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- - - D I S C L A I M E R - - -
{ihnp4,fortune}!dual\ All opinions expressed herein are my
{qantel,idi}-> !intelca!cem own and not those of my employer, my
{ucbvax,hao}!hplabs/ friends, or my avocado plant. :-}notes@isucs1.UUCP (01/27/85)
I assembled a ZRT-80 board about 6 months ago and I can highly recommend it.
It is a very high-quality kit with locking dipswitches and machined-pin sockets
for the 40-pin chips (socket cost > $5). I soldered the thing together in
about 3 hours, hooked it up to my old SOL-20 keyboard and a modem and dialed
up the university VAX with absolutely no problem! The documentation is good,
but it is sketchy on theory of operation and customization of the rom program
(Maybe this information is on the disk, but my disk system isn't up yet).
DRC has put out an excellent product, and anyone who is in the market for
a quality low-priced terminal (and doesn't mind doing a little soldering
and other such work) would be well advised to buy at least one ZRT-80.
(By the way, this response was entered on my ZRT-80 in H19 mode.)
Jeff Henkels