Wyse terminal modes

From: Wayne Cox <wcox_at_mis.usaeroteam.com>
Date: Sun Aug 9 11:11:17 1998

On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Adam Fritzler wrote:
> This is probably not a 10yr thing, but I don't know any other list that's
> I've got a Wyse WY-50 terminal. From the menus, it's got four modes:
> FDX, BLOCK, HDX, H-BLK

Oh.. those date back to at least 1984 or 85, so you're ok there ;) You're
correct on the full/half duplex thing. The half-dup just causes the
transmitted keys to display on the screen, without echoing them back from
the host. Block allowed you to locally fill in data on the screen, then
press a key to xmit the whole screen back to the host. I've never seen
anything that used block-mode, besides IBMs and their proprietary
terminals. The FDX mode is probably the thing for 98% of what you might
connect it to.

> Also, are these terminals just really lacking features or are Linux and
> *BSD just not running it right? It seems that tabs get ignored, for one.

Somewhere in the setup is an "emulation" parameter. Many of these were
configured to emulate Adds terminals. Which had some of the most stupid,
agravating, annoying command sequences and quirks ever dreamed up. Set
it to WY-50 mode, enable the "enhanced" parameter, and check if your OS
has a driver for this setup. It should behave much better.

> What were these terminals meant to be used with? I got this one from a
> AS/400 installation, though I don't know if it was ever actually used for

Probably one of the most popular dumb terminals ever built... Used with
all kinds of multi-user mini and micro systems to this day. Including
DEC, DG, Prime, HP, NCR, Pick, Altos, and all flavors of unix platforms.

They're not the most reliable things; prone to blowing caps on the
crt/psu board after a couple years of service, but easily fixed.

  -Wayne Cox
Received on Sun Aug 09 1998 - 11:11:17 BST

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