vt52 and vt100 replicas?

[Noah Smith]

hi everybody - just want to check in if there are any 'kits' available right now? this project has been on the radar, but have lost track of what's going on with it?

https://hackaday.io/project/177596-23-scale-vt100-terminal-reproduction

would imagine raspi based, using the excellent vt52 / vt100 emulation on small 'flat screens' - and telnet over wifi into pidp-10 - no need for 'real serial'?

cheers!

noah

[Thomas Niccum]

Not sure about kits; 

I 3d printed the case, but I got myself a VT100 keyboard from Ebay, and built a DEC keyboard to USB converter, which works.  I think I posted about it on the PDP11 group a couple years ago.

[Noah Smith]

awesome! thanks for the pic thomas, looks great!:)

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "PiDP-10" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pidp-10/K4yQUckW2xs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to pidp-10+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-10/ee49f684-95d9-41dc-bd83-ddec4c356ec4n%40googlegroups.com.

--

noah smith - state space dev

[Ian Schofield]

Dear All,

 Well, can't quite compete with Thomas's VT100. I usually use my DECMATE III as a terminal for the genuine green screen experience.

 But if anyone is interested, I have built an app for a 4.3" LCD which was intended as an update for this project from SpriteTM: 

Mini replica of DEC PDP-11 computer runs 2.11 BSD UNIX on ESP32 SoC - CNX Software.

This uses an ESP-WROVER-KIT which has a rather small display.

I have just uploaded the app to: Isysxp/VT52_Telnet_Client: A VT52 client with BLE keyboard and LCD display.

This really still needs a bigger LCD. But, something to play with!!!

Regards, Ian.

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Oh, by the way.  Whilst not being replicas in the physical sense, I have made software simulations of the VT100 and VT52 hardware that run the original ROM firmware/microcode.  There are some bugs, but the basics work.

https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/terminal-simulator/

By the way again, there is a 1:3 scale VT100 replica with a working keyboard.  It's super cute!

[Noah Smith]

hi lars, this reminds me - have wondered - is your terminal-simulator github project https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/terminal-simulator/ what comes as part of the 'pidp-10 software package', as 'the vt52'? love that 'fuzzy glow' effect in that 'vt52 window', was pretty much the first thing wanted to see when got started with pidp-10:)

cheers,

noah

 

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "PiDP-10" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pidp-10/K4yQUckW2xs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to pidp-10+u...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pidp-10/9509e24e-d65f-4051-b137-9ba8b0097daen%40googlegroups.com.

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Noah Smith wrote:

hi lars, this reminds me - have wondered - is your terminal-simulator github project https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/terminal-simulator/ what comes as part of the 'pidp-10 software package', as 'the vt52'?

No, that's not my simulator.  The one that comes with the PiDP-10 was written by Angelo Papenhoff, which emulates the behaviour of a VT52 without modeling its internals.  Angelo has also written a Verilog simulation which does model the VT52 hardware very well.

[Noah Smith]

ok, thanks lars - makes sense - think did know this at some point, will note it down this time!:) will be exploring this more - might have a good use for at least 'surface level emulation' coming up - basically just giving some 'look and feel' - now if we can just capture 'the sounds' of those keys and 'the bell', hahaha!;)

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Noah Smith wrote:

might have a good use for at least 'surface level emulation' coming up - basically just giving some 'look and feel' - now if we can just capture 'the sounds' of those keys and 'the bell', hahaha!;)

Sure!  As long as someone is willing to record those sounds.  I believe someone made a BBC Micro emulator with individually recorded sounds for each key.  Now that's dedication!

[Noah Friedman]

That is amazing.  Although Cool Retro Term comes close in appearance, I've been wanting for years to write a proper Ann Arbor Ambassador simulator.  I still have my scripts to program the macro keys for the LCS dialup at 545 Tech Square :-)

[Noah Smith]

thanks for the note about 'cool retro term' - wasn't aware of it and checking it out now, looks good! reminded me to try the aap vt52 from laptop - works great!:) hard to get a decent photo that captures the full effect - let's try this one...

https://github.com/aap/vt05/tree/master

% brew install sdl2      
% make vt52
%./vt52 -B -b 9600 telnet 192.168.178.21 2030

[Rodney Hester]

A very good VTxxx option is the VT132 (which is *highly* accurate to the VT100 and VT52 amongst others) which has been my go-to for all things 60s and 70s retro :)  Wired or wireless options available, a fantastic piece of kit:

https://thehighnibble.com/vt132/#vt132-stand-alone-edition

[Clem Cole]

On Mon, May 26, 2025 at 3:47 PM Noah Friedman <noah.f...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've been wanting for years to write a proper Ann Arbor Ambassador simulator.  I still have my scripts to program the macro keys for the LCS dialup at 545 Tech Square :-)

FYI: I generally disregard the gaming content, but it's worth noting that the game hardware used was also utilized by terminal manufacturers.  So if they put a commercial off-the-shelf processor and core video chip in their terminal, the MAME game emulator can often support it.  It was recently reported elsewhere that MAME supports a large number of terminals. I checked with the command 'mame -listmedia | grep XXX' and it appears that both the AAA and the H19 are listed (there are several others, so check for yourself if you have a favorite). Perform an internet search on how to set up MAME to run as a VT100 terminal.  It seems pretty straightforward.  I would expect any of the other terminals to work the same way.  You simply specify which ROMs and hardware emulation to configure, and MAME is off.

Note, I have not (and will not have a chance for a while) to try this, but for the PiDP-10, if it does work, t would make sense to tell people to the mame aaa, and for the PiDP-11 running 2.11BSD, we had a lot of mame h19 — so that will work better than VT-100s.  Note at UCB we did have a few aaa [I had one] but >>not VT-100's because they were not 100% ANSI compliant  [The truth is UNIX people tried to avoid them until xterm came on the scene, which supported a VT-100 plus much of the missing ANSI sequences that the original DEC terminals did not [because xterm was developed at MIT, not DEC].

So Noah, please try MAME and report back if you have success.  It should be running Ann Arbor's ROMs. The question is how well the MAME folks did in emulating the hardware.  I'd love to hear it works, as I'd love to have an AAA emulation again myself.