What terminals do people use?

[Eightbitswide]

I'm new to this with having only completed the Altair Sim build a week ago.

I'm testing various options to do VT100 terminal and for the moment have

settled on the Marco Maccaferri build of the VT100 terminal for the RC2014

computer.  It's the closest I've come to a decent terminal which can be contained

in the box with the rest of the simulator.

I'm curious what others have come up with for terminals to connect?

I'm seeing pi zero, PIC, and even pi-pico solutions.  Or do folks tend to go old school

and connect to real hardware?

8b

 

[Tom Lake]

Many people have the Pro model which has an ASCII terminal built in. It's mostly VT-100 compatible with graphics extensions added.

If you want the same terminal in a standalone version, see the link below. It's an inexpensive board that requires a VGA monitor and USB keyboard.

You have to assemble it yourself but it's an easy job if you've ever soldered any other projects.

Updated ASCII Video Terminal

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I built one of those  Geoff Graham/Gary Kaufman  VT-100 ASCII Terminal board emulator kits.  I still have a few extra boards.  I think I ordered ten boards since it didn't change the total cost.  The real cost is about $25 just for the shipping.  The blank boards cost $5.  The shipping cost is probably a little higher these days.  

I like the VersaTerm better.  The VersaTerm kit became public about 2-days after I ordered the VT-100 ASCII Terminal boards, I haven't even tried it.  Once the VersaTerm was built and working, it works so nicely so I built a 2nd for another computer.  One of these days I do need to give the VT-100 ASCII Terminal a try, but it's difficult to get at the cables on the back of the monitor.  

The odd thing about the VersaTerm and probably would also be for the  VT-100 ASCII Terminal kit is that connected to my Altair 8800c, it doesn't do the graphics that the built-in VT-100 I/O board does on my Altair-Duino Pro computers!  

[rla...@gmail.com]

I'm using a TI Silent 700 teletype for my Altair-duino.

On Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 12:00:47 AM UTC-4 Eightbitswide wrote:

[da...@hansels.net]

Walt, the escape sequences that produce the graphics output are an extension that Geoff added when he
created his VT-100 ASCII terminal. As far as I know those are not standardized and will only work on Geoff's

VT-100 ASCII Terminal kit.

So if you connect the ASCII Terminal to your Altair 8800c then you should see the correct graphics output
but you won't get the graphics with any other terminal.

[Belknap K]

  * * *   a bit long and ranty.  Please disregard. ;)

I need Octal support so some formatting exceeds a reasonably wide
terminal margin. I think the Octal hexdump is approaching idk 92
characters in terminal width.  I tried to rework that format - I think
it should stand as-is. Terminal itself needs to be wider.

In Linux I already routinely run a terminal to 105 characters by 27 lines.

If I need /dev/ttyACM0 support, I go with 'picocom' in Linux, with a
fairly elaborate setup script to flip the preferred command line switches.

I've used Plan 9 from Bell Labs (9front.org variant) as a terminal for
other projects, and I like it over something like Raspbian (both run on
RPi4 just fine).

So basically, I'm running an operating system that generates 'windows'
(usually, not always) as its main user interface, and then run a 'shell'
in that window, and then probably run a telecom program such as
hyperterm, procomm, seyon, minicom, TeraTerm, putty .. or my preferred
picocom).

I have used the built-in terminal but it's got that front porch back
porch issue (text shifted off-screen and cannot fix from the LCD setup
menus on the display, so is a no-starter - another display works and
represents all text on-screen but isn't the display I want to work with
- also no copy and paste support at all using that environment, and I'm
not into self-torture for no gain what-so-ever, so I want my copy and
paste function for 'out of band' access to stuff I want to send to the
Altair-Duino.


And in that regard, picocom leverages the ascii-xfr (ascii transfer)
program of 'minicom' in Linux and uses it to ascii upload things like
the contents of a .HEX file, to the A-D. That's a must-have, for my
workflow.

On 9/11/22 04:00, Eightbitswide wrote:
> I'm new to this with having only completed the Altair Sim build a week
> ago.
> I'm testing various options to do VT100 terminal and for the moment have

> settled on the Marco Maccaferri <https://github.com/maccasoft> build

> of the VT100 terminal for the RC2014
> computer.  It's the closest I've come to a decent terminal which can
> be contained
> in the box with the rest of the simulator.
>
> I'm curious what others have come up with for terminals to connect?
> I'm seeing pi zero, PIC, and even pi-pico solutions.  Or do folks tend
> to go old school
> and connect to real hardware?
>
> 8b
>

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On 9/11/22 04:00, Eightbitswide wrote:
> I'm new to this with having only completed the Altair Sim build a week
> ago.
> I'm testing various options to do VT100 terminal and for the moment have

> settled on the Marco Maccaferri <https://github.com/maccasoft> build

> of the VT100 terminal for the RC2014
> computer.  It's the closest I've come to a decent terminal which can
> be contained
> in the box with the rest of the simulator.
>
> I'm curious what others have come up with for terminals to connect?
> I'm seeing pi zero, PIC, and even pi-pico solutions.  Or do folks tend
> to go old school
> and connect to real hardware?
>
> 8b
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Altair-Duino" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to altair-duino...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/7c94de23-29a4-4cfd-ba1e-4ab838b2e6f7n%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/7c94de23-29a4-4cfd-ba1e-4ab838b2e6f7n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

My Altair 8800c is connected to a VersaTerm.  I thought that was the same basic PIC chip as the Geoff Graham ASCII Terminal ??? 

Can I put the Altair-Duino Pro VT-100 PIC chip onto the VersaTerm?  

[da...@hansels.net]

No, they are not interchangeable. VersaTerm uses a Raspberry Pi Pico,
while the Geoff Graham terminal uses a PIC32.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I meant "code" ... even the added code that furba added into the PIC chip makes for higher resolution graphics would be nice on the VersaTerm.  

[da...@hansels.net]

The RPi Pico and a PIC32 are completely different devices so the code can not be transferred.

VersaTerm is a pure text terminal. It was designed to have color, a full 80x25 text screen size
and very accurate VT100 compatibility. To support high-res graphics, the firmware would have to
be  re-written from scratch and a number of the current features that set VersaTerm apart from Geoff's
terminal would be lost due to memory/processor constraints. If you need support for Geoff's
graphics commands you should stick with his ASCII terminal.

[Eightbitswide]

David,

I'm looking at your VersaTerm schematic.  It looks like I could create the VGA circuit, feed the TTL serial directly

from the Due into the Pico (both being 3v micros), but I'm confused by your USB keyboard setup.

Are you reading a USB keyboard plugged into the Pico's USB connector via adapter or are you sending

D+/D- to the Pico's I/O pins?  If so, where?

8b

[da...@hansels.net]

Unfortunately the Pico does not route D+/D- to the pin headers but it does have test points for D+ and D- that

can be (ab)used as solder pads. That's how the USB signals get to the Pico (see the assembly tips).

And yes, the VersaTerm layout is very modular, you can leave out any functionality you don't want
(e.g. HDMI out, beeper, RS232 converter) and the rest should still work. So yes you can leave out all of the
components on the serial input/output side and just directly connect the Due to the Pico.