[TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

Sat Jul 9 07:09:00 AEST 2016

I started on ADM-1 (upper case only but they did have cursor addressing) and ASR-33 teletypes.   I remember using all the backslash escapes to write my first C program while Mike Muuss looked on in the UGL at Hopkins.     Later we got HP terminals with upper and lower case.

Hopkins had a KSR37 in the EE department with a greek type box on it even.   It was stored in a closet dubbed (obviously) “The KSR Room.”    The pennywhistle modem I had lived there.   We used to place collect calls to the Pentagon TIP (we’d tell the operator we were calling a computer and if it beeped it accepted the charges).    Later they upgraded the printing with a Diablo-ish (daisy wheel) printer.    We had such printers over in various other labs I had access to (Psych department, etc.).

Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave poor tilde alone) and a few ADM-3’s and for some idiotic reason the department bought a couple of SWTPC implementations of the TVTypewriterII which were just awful.  Tektronix donated a bunch of stuff to us so we ended up with both 4014-ish things and some real raster Tek graphics terminals.

When I went over to BRL we primarily dealt with some VT52 clones which were preferred because they  put the control key next to the A which we liked.   Eventually, we got the Teletype 5620 the commercialization of the Blit/jerq DMD terminals.     By the time I left most of us had either Suns or SGIs on our desk though.

At home I had an ADM-3 followed by one of the VT-52 clones and also a ASR 37 that I got surplus (It had a Rocky Flats property tag on it).    When I moved to NJ I ditched them all and just used at terminal emulator on my DOS PC-AT for the longest time.    I actually had a 9600 SLIP line and a router to the Ethernet in my house (I used one of the RU subnet numbers).  

From: TUHS [mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Clem Cole
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 4:49 PM
To: Random832
Cc: TUHS main list
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:

What terminals did you use, back in those days?

Hard copy (that I remember, but we have proven how poor memory can be):

*	ASR/KSR 33s originally, we had one 37 but it was not on a system I used
*	IBM console's printers Model numbers I've forgotten (but with an APL ball)
*	Later Xerox DaisyWheel printers Model numbers I've forgotten
*	Later DEC Decwritter I and II

Glass TTY (not complete but for a quick memory dump)

*	Lear Siegler ADM3 (lots of them - many people made them as kits) and why we have hjkl as the movement keys in vi - the arrows were embossed on those key tops
*	PE "Fox" (CMU has a large lot deal and these became the standard there in the late 70s)
*	Triple Drip "Graphic Wonders" (man I miss these with a dedicated PDP11 and an amazing keyboard --- best game platform I ever knew)
*	Tektronix 401x series (just about all models of them) but 4014 was used the most
*	DEC VT52
*	Eventually, VT-100, PT-100 and a number of other VT-100 knock offs
*	Eventually Tek 4025s (until the RT, one of the best keyboards - used in Magnolia BTW)
*	Heathkit H19 (still have mine that I built)
*	Eventually Wyse 100's, 99GTs and Wyse 60s -- later being the best Wyse (I still have one)
*	Ann Arbor Ambassador (my all time favorite - wish I still had one)
*	Too many different graphics terminals to remember
*	Numerous other "dumb terminals" who's brand names I have long forgotten.
*	although for some reason I remember the Kimtron KT-7 being a popular one - memory is they were dirt cheap at the time
*	Eventually later models of DEC terminals, but the keyboard always sucked and had those strange DEC private connectors on them, so I tried to avoid them.

Clem

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