Vt180, whats the story here?

From: B'ichela <mdalene_at_home.ctol.net>
Date: Fri Oct 29 19:18:29 1999

On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Tony Duell wrote:

> some extra video RAM, etc. It allows you to have 24 rows of 132
> characters, extra text attributes, etc.
>
> Unless it's faulty, leave it in place. It can do no harm, and in general
> it makes the VT100 work like most modern programs expect a VT100 to
> behave.
Ok, thanks for explaining what that REALLY does. I always had wondered
what was the AVO's job.
> I believe the STP _is_ the VT180 processor.
AH-Ha! Ok now things are a little less cryptic especially since the
When Requesting a DSR to the Terminal it says it is a Vt100 with AVO and
STP. (ESC [?1;3c)
>
> I am going to guess a bit here. My guess is that the STP connects to a
> paddleboard that goes into the edge connector on the VT100 logic board.
> This is a very clever piece of DEC design -- the contacts on this edge
> connector are designed to touch if there's no PCB inserts. By so doing
> they connect the VT100 logic to the RS232 connector on the back. By
> inserting a PCB you can intercept this connection, allowing the VT100
> terminal to talk to the STP and also the STP to talk to the host via the
> RS232 connector.
>
> A second guess is that if you remove the PCB from this edge connector,
> the thing goes back to being a normal VT100.
        I'm going to give it a try. AT least until I get that boot disk
and cable. Because right now when I turn it on it tells me that I have a
boot floppy error (Of Course I do, I don't have a drive cable or a disk as
of yet.)
> think it could drive a Tekky 4000 (since most things can...), but I doubt
> if it can do the VT105.
>
> No idea where you get either of these boards, either...
        I would think.... Someone on this list might have some of those
boards hiding in their parts bins.
>
> >From the left :
>
> Block 1:
> Scroll (0=jump, 1=smooth)
> Autorepeat (0=off, 1=on)
> Screen (0=dark background, 1=light background)
> Cursor (0=underline, 1=block)
>
> Block 2:
> Margin bell (0=off, 1=on)
> Keyclick (0=off, 1=on)
> Emulation (0=VT52, 1=ANSI)
> Auto Xon/Xoff (0=off, 1=on)
>
> Block 3:
> Shifted-3 (0=#, 1=\pounds)
> Wrap around (0=off, 1=on)
> New line (0=off, 1=on)
> Interlace (0=off,1=on)
>
> Block 4:
> Parity (0=odd, 1=even)
> Parity (0=off, 1=on)
> Bits/Char (0=7bits, 1=8bits)
> Power (0=60Hz, 1=50Hz)
>
Thanks, that does help things for me. I remember how to Save/restore set
the serial ports (non-printer) it was always those Little bit mapped
registers that always got me lost.
>
> > 8. Since it has Composite In and Composite out. Does it have a
> > built in genlock allowing me to at least use the Vt100 to do titling
> > and captions; then sending the output to a second Video Recording
> > unit. if titleing is not possible, what is Composite video IN for??
>
> There is no genlock, the VT100 has to be the sync generator.
>
> Composite out is what you expect -- a composite feed to an external
> monitor, etc.
>
> Composite in is strange. You first have to extract the sync from the
> composite out socket, and lock an external video source to that. You can
> then feed the output of that video source into the composite in socket,
> where it will be displayed on the VT100 screen, overlayed with the text
> from the VT100 itself. But notice the external source is synced to the
> VT100 and not the reverse.
        Ok, now how does one Discard the Horizontal and Vertical Sync
pulses from a video signal? before feeding to the Input?
Does the Vt100 have built in logic to do that
or was that a seperate adaptor from DEC?
        Has anyone tried it with COLOR Composite Inputs? Remember what I
was thinkinf of using it for. what about the Chrominance signal? or do I
need to strip that in addition to the native sync pulses?
>
> > While we are on the issue of DEC stuff. Who has the full list
> > of the Control Codes for the Rainbow 100's terminal mode? How come
> > when I fire up CP/M Modem7 or 8? I can use the Previous Screen/Next
> > Screen keys and yet in the ROM Vt100 emulation Neither key works? Is
>
> PResumably the Modem7 program is rather more user-friendlt than the one
> in ROM... Next/Prev screen were not VT100 features, AFAIK, so I guess DEC
> didn't see any need to make them work with the built-in VT100 emulator.
>
> -tony
>
        Probally for the reason you mentioned. it was Supposed to act as a
true VT102 (Vt100 sucessor). But under CP/M 86/80 the keys are usable in
some terminal programs Modem 7 for example WILL send them to my Linux
system, whose terminfo for the Vt102 Will use them. Withnout having to go
through that Ugly Terminfo stuff. does anyone have a list of the ansi
codes that are sent by them?

                A pearl of wisdom from the y2K newsgroups:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Y2K appears to be the Baby Boomers mid-life crisis, and it has the
potential to be a dandy.
                        -- Anonymnous --
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                        B'ichela
Received on Fri Oct 29 1999 - 19:18:29 BST