rescued a beehive!

From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <(allisonp_at_world.std.com)>
Date: Fri May 19 13:03:17 2000

> Well, Allison, you're right about the Esprit, since it didn't come around
> until the very late '70's, but it was my choice at that time because (1)

I know, I worked for Haziltine and was part of manufacturing engineering
for terminals then.

> compatibility issues under CP/M. Various software packages had to be
> configured specifically for whichever terminal was in use, and being "close"
> generally led to trouble.

I know... However, Vt52 was the safest of the lot for emulation as it
was so minimal and widely used/copied. The key was having screen clear,
clear to end of line and gotoxy all were trivial.

> The early video boards with 16 lines of 64 characters weren't supported by
> most software vendors at the time. Only after the popularity of the TRS-80
> (1978) became a factor did 16x64 become useable with standard CP/M systems
> and software. Of course, one could write one's own drivers, but that was
> not a popular solution for most users.

Actually 72 lines was more defacto as that was TTY.
 
> Who built that VDM-1? Was that not a part of some vendor's "set" of boards?

Processor Technology, you could buy it alone and they had other boards as
well all very good. I bought mine(still have it) for the Altair in early
'76 as TTY was noisy and often slow for debugging/editing.

Allison
Received on Fri May 19 2000 - 13:03:17 BST