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

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-06-30 11:39:34 +0000, Dirk Munk said:

> Paul Anderson wrote:
>> On 6/29/15 3:16 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> 
>>> Well, isn't VTstar related to Powerterm (the thing DEC shipped with
>>> Pathworks?)
>> 
>> VTstar is compatible with VT terminals because it _is_ the code that 
>> ran on VT terminals.  It's just in software instead of firmware.  
>> VTstar was written by the same group at DEC (Components and 
>> Peripherals) that developed VT terminals.

IIRC, VTstar was created from the firmware by one engineer.  J.L.

> In that case, wouldn't it be great if the sources still exist?

The sources still exist at HP, and I know where they are located.

> You could build a new Windows version with secure communications, IPv6 
> etc., and Linux / MacOS versions.

Entertaining, certainly.  Particularly if HP and Z-Axis or whoever has 
rights to the code open-sources it on reasonable terms.  Who has rights 
to what being an obvious question.

But then VSI doing a terminal emulator for Microsoft Windows, OS X, 
Linux, Android and/or iOS is not going to be a particularly profitable 
effort, nor will it particularly further OpenVMS.

For those that do need an emulator, Panic's Prompt emulator works well 
on iOS <https://panic.com/prompt/>, and the stock OS X terminal 
emulator or one of the add-ons works well for most OS X usage.  
Android/AOSP has emulation readily available, as does Linux.

> I suppose it would even be possible to emulate newer VT terminals as 
> well, like the VT520 and VT525 colour terminal.
> 
> Much easier to use than Xterm.......

On OS X, launch X11.app, then launch xterm from the menus.  Pretty easy.

It's rather rare to use the command line outside of development and 
operations tasks, and most end-user applications are not now and will 
not be migrating to it.  Legacy code still uses it, but even that's 
migrating to GUI interfaces and domain-specific languages where 
necessary and appropriate.  On OpenVMS, GUI interfaces are a pain to 
create, and — outside of web-based interfaces — the effort tends to get 
ugly far more quickly than with more competitive platforms and tools.  
But then OpenVMS has been a server operating system for a decade or two 
now, and rather poor at client and desktop.   But serial terminal 
interfaces and terminal emulators?  Probably not a growth area...



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