[Info-vax] Last Call for (New) DEC VT Terminals

[Simon Clubley]

On 2015-06-27, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk <johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I think CDE's open source these days. Does it include a terminal
> emulator worth looking at?
>

I had a quick look at CDE's terminal emulator about 3 years ago;
according to my notes I stopped the evaluation when I couldn't
get PF1 through PF4 to work in EDT keypad mode in emacs. According
to my notes, I could get the application keypad keys to work but
not PF1-PF4.

It's amazing the number of so-called open source emulators I've
broken within (literally) 30 seconds by trying to use the EDT
keypad mode in emacs. Once I break it, I do spend some time exploring
various configuration options but usually without success.

It seems most emulators focus on the display part (with varying degrees
of accuracy) and ignore the input part. BTW, even on the display side,
I've broken more than one open source emulator over the years with
a simple "mon sys" from a VMS session.

> Anyone know what the licencing status of DECterm is these days?
>
> FredK was going to start looking at a proper trustworthy terminal
> emulator several years ago [1] but I can't remember whether it got
> anywhere.
>

I've seriously toyed with the idea more than once myself.

> I can remember that FredK is no longer with us.
>
> I can't recall any similar terminal emulator discussions in the
> intervening period but my memory is not 100% and nor are the search
> engines.
>
> Fonts are probably as important as source code too, and may have
> (or require) a separate licence.
>

I don't really miss the fonts and there's a good range of fonts
available with the base X Windows distribution; my standard font
is the 10X20 misc font which I find to be very readable.

I mention the X Windows distribution because doesn't the licence
allow reasonably free reuse IIRC ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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