VT420, only toasted

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Wed Jul 26 05:48:29 2000

>Even with burnin CRTs? I will be looking at them again today, but last week
>they were just sitting on a couple warehouse carts with no interest except
>snag a few keyboards. Location is UC Irvine in SoCal. OTOH maybe the scrap
>guy wants too much for them?

I bought two of them despite the nasty burnin today. Took them home and
plugged my LK401 I wanted to test into it and turned on the power. Wow, the
burnin looks very nasty with the old library screen easy to read WITH THE
POWER OFF, with the power on I don't even notice it except during the power
up when it does the big checker board tests, and then its marginal, not
nasty.

What do I need to do to put the VT420 into local mode? It powers up, does
some obvious testing like the checkerboard screens (big than little), and
finally says something like VT420 OK, no printer connected. Nothing seems
to make a difference until I hit Return, then I get a prompt at the top
left and a line at the bottom. So how do I get to setup mode to set it to
local echo?

Does this change interest in them? When powered on they have what appears
to me so far very usable, if not "nice" amber screens. They don't "seem"
very heavy either, but I haven't packed one and put it on a scale.
Keyboards are doubtfull, when I left another guy was trying to buy all of
them, but I will know for sure on Thursday. Assuming I can't get keyboards
I am willing to buy a VT420 and pack it for $12 plus whatever the actual
shipping is. No variation on a normal box is going to hold a VT420 and a
keyboard anyway, so might as well keep them separate with a LK401 keyboard
at $10 plus $7 shipping IF I can get some.

Some of the units have a velcro attached glare screen, most have a short
dongle with a weird RJ11 socket. There were also a few VT320 displays, but
I haven't looked that closely at them (same burnin look though). This
Thursday will likely be my last chance at them, as a big load is coming in
that day, and I will be in Silly Con Valley (yes really) next week (8/1 to
8/3).
Received on Wed Jul 26 2000 - 05:48:29 BST