VT52s and VT61 clearance

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Tue Jul 20 08:50:19 2004

>>>>> "Ashley" == Ashley Carder <wacarder_at_usit.net> writes:

 Ashley> I have two or three VT52s and the VT61 that I'm wanting to
 Ashley> get rid of. The VT61 seems to be quite uncommon. I can't
 Ashley> find much about it on Google. It had more features than the
 Ashley> VT52 and I think did "full screen" processing, but I'm not
 Ashley> sure.

Correct. I once worked with the VT61/t. I don't remember if there
are other variants. (There is the related VT62, used with the
shortest-lived operating system in history, TRAX.)

The VT61/t was the entry level editing terminal for Typeset-11. It's
a forms processing and text editing terminal. It uses block mode
transmission in both directions, one screen at a time. I think the
protocol was pretty hairy -- finding any documentation on how it
worked is likely to be quite difficult.

For text editing it's actually pretty pathetic, but it was cheap by
comparison to the serious editing terminal, the VT71. (That one has
an LSI-11 inside, and can edit a full document, up to 32kbytes or so
long, all in local memory.) On the other hand, for forms entry as you
would encounter it in the classified advertising department, it worked
very well.

Internally those terminals are monsters -- many circuit boards, all
single sided etch with thousands of jumper wires on the other side to
make up for that. Why they didn't use double sided boards is still a
puzzle to me...

       paul
Received on Tue Jul 20 2004 - 08:50:19 BST