In message "VC404 The Standard", lwalker_at_mail.interlog.com writes:
> One of my recent curbside finds is a machine put out by a Canadian company
>based in Waterloo Ont called Volker-Craig model vg-400. On the front it has a
>title VC404 The Standard.
I also have a 404, discarded from a university lab many years ago.
These terminals seem to have been popular in university student
terminal rooms because they were relatively cheap. I seem to recall
that the company founders were ex-University of Waterloo people.
I've seen 404s not just in Canada but also in Britain, where they were
the standard terminals on a university Vax system I once used. So I'm
not too surprised Tony has a tech manual. (Actually, I wouldn't be
surprised if Tony had a tech manual for Noah's Ark :)
>It has a k-b attached with ribbon cable
Unfortunately the keyboards were not that robust and after a few
generations of students pounding away on them, the keyboard or the
ribbon cable often became unreliable.
>In the back it
>has a 25 pin RS232 connector, a BNC labelled "composite video" ,2 switches :
>one 3-pos.to configure parity the other "Transparent on off"
That video connector on the back was useful for hooking into a big
classroom overhead monitor so a whole class could learn from observing a
terminal session.
These terminals are very helpful for debugging RS-232 communications.
The "transparent" switch on the back lets you choose to display all the
ASCII control codes (eg, instead of performing a "line feed" it displays
a little LF symbol).
Larry, I don't have any tech docs but I do have a thin user manual.
About all it tells you is what the special control codes are to clear
the screen, move the cursor, etc. Still, it's the information you need
to run Wordstar with it! E-mail me with your snail-mail address
and I'll run off a copy for you.
Regards,
Arlen
--
Arlen Michaels
Nortel
Ottawa, Canada (613) 763-2568 amichael_at_nortel.ca
Received on Mon Jul 20 1998 - 15:35:00 BST