info-terms (05/12/82)
>From cbosgd!mark@Berkeley Wed May 12 10:13:25 1982
A while back I reviewed the Tek 4112 and concluded that the graphics may
be OK, but the alphanumeric capabilities were like a totally dumb glass
tty, which couldn't run a screen editor. When that review went out, I
started seeing amazing results from inside Tektronix. Seems they get
this stuff, and are very interested in fixing such deficiencies.
They have a floppy which runs a program that will emulate a vt52 in the
4112. The program is unsupported but it's free. I played with one for
a few days, and it emulated a vt52 fine except that characters overstruck
instead of replacing what was already there. (Clr to eol/eos worked fine.)
This made the terminal usable with vi, but you had to hit control L a lot,
since vt52's don't have insert/delete line/char.
I don't have access to the terminal anymore, but I'm told that there is a
setup mode flag in the 4112 part of the terminal (not the vt52 emulation)
that causes replacement instead of overstrike in the graphics area. This
is claimed to fix the problem.
Tek says it's working on a full ANSI standard alphanumeric implementation
for the 4112 right now, so the terminal will be going from famine to feast.
They don't have an announced date, but seem to think it will be available
in a few months. It will be possible to upgrade old 4112's by loading a
floppy or replacing the roms. Tek is aware that the cursor addressing
sequence in the ANSI standard is verbose, and seems likely to include
a 4 character sequence as a short synonym.
If you already have a 4112, and you like to use screen editors, it seems
worthwhile to get the floppy. If you are thinking of getting one, you
probably want to wait for the ANSI version.
Mark Horton