Comments on: [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Cody

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 05:57:51 +0000

"If I keep typing, maybe they'll go away."

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Benj Edwards

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:58:27 +0000

Awesome stories, all around. And I'm glad to see that someone collects serial terminals, Richard. I love them myself.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: GReg Nagy

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:25:50 +0000

Back in college during the early 90s, we had IBM 3178/9s and HDS 100/200 terminals, depending on your host preference, but the best terminals were the surplused Telray T10s. White text, weird "bell", keyclick option, big but light detached keyboard, and strong as heck. When moving out of an off campus apt, one of my roommates used my T10 as a doorstop for the elevator. The door repeatedly slammed into the T10, but when fired up later, never missed a beat. I miss that beast.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Richard

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:24:24 +0000

I collect serial terminals and stuff relating to computer graphics.

My favorite terminal? Gee, its so hard to say, having used a number of them over the years. I always thought the HP262x series had the best onscreen font. It was nice and smooth and the descenders actually descended. For a printing terminal, I'd go with the LA-36/LA-120 for ruggedness and with the TI Silent 700 series for quietness and portability. Once we were moving an LA-36 and it rolled down a flight of concrete steps. Except for some dents in the plastic outer skins, it was fine. Those things are built like tanks. For keyboard tacility, I always liked the keyboards on the NCD 17 X terminals. There was something about the nice springiness of the feel of the keys. For graphics, it has got to be the Tektronix line of terminals, although the HP2648 did give them a run for their money. The HP 262x series had a graphics capable entry, but I've never seen one in person.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Geoff V.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:52:13 +0000

Back in '91 my mom worked at a local college. My brother and I had a favorite game when she brought us into work; one of us would distract her while the other would type "dirty words" onto her terminal computer. An auto response would say something like "watch it" or “inappropriate office language” if the word was dirty enough. Good Times…

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Chrisbones

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:46:20 +0000

Oops! Missed that. Forgot the GCE part. Was scanning the list for VECT…
Glad to hear it anyway. Oh and I never used a terminal but loved the old Green screen from the Apple II way back in my Elementary school days. That was my first time on an Apple and I've owned multiple Macs ever since. There I go, off topic again. My bad.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Benj Edwards

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:39:50 +0000

I used PCPLUS (Procom Plus) quite a bit in my early BBS days, then switched to Telix as well, Layne, which seemed to be a PC Plus clone. The company behind Telix was actually located nearby in Cary, NC, although I didn't know that until years later.

I have a friend who swore by Telemate (another MS-DOS terminal emulator). I used it recently and it really is good. Man, I didn't know what I was missing.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Layne

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:38:09 +0000

Once I found it, my preference was always Telix. I used Procomm, but I liked Telix a lot better.

http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/connected.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telix

And my first days with a terminal was shades of green…..my parents bought it with my Commodore 64. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy playing some of those games without color. I eventually plugged it up to a black and white TV (and then got smart and split the signal for "dual" screen). That helped, but I didn't know that the background was actually blue until a couple of years later…..but I hated it so much that I don't feel nostalgic about a green screen.

Layne

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Ben

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:34:25 +0000

I think the green/amber thing does depend on what you spent most of your "formative" time on. I spent a fair amount of time staring at green Apple IIE screens, but most of my "hard" work was behind the amber glow of a PC/XT clone- which I recently fired up after a long hibernation, and found the display to be oddly comforting. A simpler time, to be sure. And speaking of that computer, it's also what I spent a lot of time in my favorite terminal emulation SW- Procomm Plus 2.whatever. Tried many other ones, but I always came back to Procomm. I've been at a few terminals, too, but not enough to call a "favorite". Most were no-name dumb terminals, except for a few HPs.

Comment on [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Trapped in a Terminal Maze by: Layne

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:50:08 +0000

The high school I went to (88 to 90) was on the campus of a college. So, we had access to their VAX system. Most of the terminals were VT220′s (I think) — black & white, reminded me of TRS-80′s, but we had some GiGi's that no one really liked because they didn't know what to do with them…..I could at least make them show colors. Too bad I didn't have a better idea of what they were capable of…..I would have been extremely cool (well, cool in a nerd crowd), then.

Layne

http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Digital/gigi/index.php