< First a short summary, Something I have been giving for
<awhile, I got a free Vt180 terminal. AT least Thats what It says on
<the front. but on the back on the nameplate it says its aa Vt100-AA! I
<am wondering if the AVO and the Secondary Processor part (STP) was
<added later on. It works GREAT as a vt100 but I have ran into a few
Typically they were or could be and the VT180 was some complete or as
a VT100 upgrade.
<brick walls trying to find a EK-vt100-UG Vt100 Users Guide. I can order
<it from Digital/Compaq for $25 but I rather not dip into my grocery
<money for a technical manual. I have not found out anything on how
<to set the printer up on it. or how to use the Vt180 part of it. or
<for that matter, how do I RIP that OUT! if I cannot get a boot disk
<for it... its worthless anyway. Here is my questions. Please help me
<best you can here:
< 1. what is Advanced Video Option (AVO) and how do I use it?
AVO permits 132 character lines by 24 lines where without it you limited
to 132 by 12. It also adds video attributs (things like bold(bright),
blink, underline and more).
< 2. If the STP is the VT180 part how do I REMOVE it! *if I want
<plain Vt100, while maintaining AVO)
The STP is a seperate card that plugs in. The AVO is larger and has
several 24 pins sockets.
< 3. How do I use a printer on a VT100 and how do I set printer
<baud rates and parity, Stop bits
Different for plain VT100 than VT180. Vt180 has a utilitiy on the CPM boot
disks.
< 3. What are the part numbers for the manuals I need for this
<sucker? I know of the EK-VT100-UG and the EK-VT100-RC but what do I
<need for the advanced video option? STP (VT180? part)
If you have a VT180, you have AVO as it was a required option for VT180
installation.
< 4. What is the Graphics option? can I still get one? is that
<for bit mapped graphics? howis it used? can the graphics be used via
<Linux with graphics display utility or a plotting program (gnupplot).
The graphics option was/is the VT125 upgrade. That can be combined
to make a VT185 but the STP card for that config is really rare (I have
one of the few). Nominally VT180s were not used with graphics option.
The VT125 does two modes of bit mapped graphics, REGIS and SIXEL. the
latter being a raw bit transfer and regis being a higher level plotting
like language.
< 5. can any of this info be located on the internet? Do I need
<to go hungry by ordering over $200 in US dollars worth of manuals (I
<only get $686 each month due to my legal blindness, that goes for
<rent, Electric, Gas, phone and food. My rent is $350.00 btw.
I'm afraid due to copyright and shear volume it's not on the net.
< 6. who has the sticker (in sticker form) that goes on the
<bottom of the vt100 keyboard showing the setup B screen and I/O toggle
<possitions.
DEC! It would be easier to get a keyboard for vt100 that does have that.
< 7. How do I make the Needed cable to connect to the external
<floppy drive unit? Db37 to Db25? what is the pinouts or wiring to
<make this cable.
I can give you the pinouts, I also have the cable sitting here to send
between emergencies and other firedrills. ( I keep win boxen going).
< 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??
Yes. It's use for that was a not often used feature but for those that
needed it there were few options.
< I tried to find this info for over 2 weeks, on Webcrawler,
<Infoseeek, Lycos, Altavista, Lycos (ftp search), Ask Jeeves, hotbot and
<what I have gotten is very sketchy at best. All I really NEED at this
<time is a a copy of the needed manuals in either Postscript or PDF
<format. or good ole HTML.. Finding the pin outs of the Vt180 cable are
<non-existant, as is sources of Vt180 boot disk images.
The vt180 was early 80s. One thing about the great WWW, if it's old, it
aint there!
< 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
It's a long list. The VT100 was the ansi terminal standard! All others
were copies.
<Screen keys and yet in the ROM Vt100 emulation Neither key works? Is
<there a good program for CPM 86/80 that allows the use or the extraa
<keys to be sent to Linux? such as HELP, DO, HOME, Insert, Delete Next
<Screen and Previous Screen? what is the Ansi codes sent by these
<keys?? I need something that handles 9600 bps with proper flow
<control. the "Modem" program for CP/M does NOT seem to work well at
<9600 as it drops characters often.
Common case. Vt100 and vt180 software wwill run fast (19.2) _IF_
the other side and the modem understand X-on/X-off flow control.
Even the base VT100 will not run at 9600 without that. I'd bet the
linux Driver supports that but, it's PC based/biased so it's concept of
slow maybe 38.4 which is not the way it was in the 1980s.
IF there is no flow control, 2400 maybe 4800 is the limit then.
Allison
Received on Fri Oct 29 1999 - 22:05:22 BST