Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> writes:
>On Wed, 18 May 2022 00:09:54 -0000 (UTC), Chris Adams wrote:
>>
>> Note that the Pi serial port is not going to work directly on a classic
>> terminal. The Pi signalling is not RS-232 (typically +12/-12V IIRC) but
>> 3.3V/0V. Sending more than 3.3V into a Pi serial pin will fry it.
>>
>> There are pre-made Pi-to-USB serial adapters for connecting to a PC, but
>> I don't know if there are pre-made Pi-to-read-RS-232 adapters.
>
>Curious, somebody threw out a 2011 LED TV. One jack on the backside is
>labeled RS-232. What would you do with that on a TV?

1 - Access for repair, diagnostics and service updates.
2 - Access for high-end AV control systems (Yamaha has
RS-232 ports on their receivers for that purpose).

On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:49:35 AM UTC-6, Magnus Olsson wrote:

> Personally, I can see the appeal in all these reasons but CRTs have a rather large footprint and I don't really have the desk space for one.

What with the implosion hazard, high voltages, and X-rays, if one has small children or pets, I
can certainly see someone deciding to resist the pull of nostalgia.

Plus, with the passage of time, such items are now expensive antiques instead of cheap
junk.

John Savard

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:

> On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:49:35 AM UTC-6, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>
>> Personally, I can see the appeal in all these reasons but CRTs have a rather large footprint and I don't really have the desk space for one.
>
> What with the implosion hazard,

When I was a kid, the property I lived on was frequently a dump site.
There were lots of TVs dumped there. We'd heard that word, "implosion",
sounds a lot like "explosion" doesn't it?

Well, we broke lots of TV tubes, rocks, steel shafts, anything we could
find. Never got any satisfaction out of it. The tubes just break.

--
Dan Espen

Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:

> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
>
>> On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:49:35 AM UTC-6, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>>
>>> Personally, I can see the appeal in all these reasons but CRTs have a rather large footprint and I don't really have the desk space for one.
>>
>> What with the implosion hazard,
>
> When I was a kid, the property I lived on was frequently a dump site.
> There were lots of TVs dumped there. We'd heard that word, "implosion",
> sounds a lot like "explosion" doesn't it?
>
> Well, we broke lots of TV tubes, rocks, steel shafts, anything we could
> find. Never got any satisfaction out of it. The tubes just break.

When the computer center on campus was disposing of a bunch of CRT
terminals some friends of mine and I went out to the local shooting
range and used them for target practice. Same (lack of exciting)
results you saw. A paint can full of water is a lot more fun.

On 2022-05-18, maus <maus@dmaus.org> wrote:

> On 2022-05-17, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 17 May 2022 12:57:02 +0200, Jason Evans
>> <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>
>> or other in the attic. Many decades ago Tech Data sent them to me by
>> mistake and didn't want them back and I never had a use for them. If
>> you're interested I'll see if I can dig them out and get the details.
>> If you're not in North America though the shipping may be more than
>> they're worth. That assumes of course that the squirrels haven't been
>> at them.
>
> I have a sudden vision of Squirrels tapping away at dumb terminals, and
> wondering why they were getting no reply. Thanks for that.
>
> NO CARRIER

You need a small dog to go after the squirrels - hopefully ones that
won't chew on the cables themselves.

No! Sparky! Get away from that power co

NO TERRIER

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Apple is a cult.
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.

Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:

> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:49:35 AM UTC-6, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Personally, I can see the appeal in all these reasons but CRTs have a rather large footprint and I don't really have the desk space for one.
>>>
>>> What with the implosion hazard,
>>
>> When I was a kid, the property I lived on was frequently a dump site.
>> There were lots of TVs dumped there. We'd heard that word, "implosion",
>> sounds a lot like "explosion" doesn't it?
>>
>> Well, we broke lots of TV tubes, rocks, steel shafts, anything we could
>> find. Never got any satisfaction out of it. The tubes just break.
>
> When the computer center on campus was disposing of a bunch of CRT
> terminals some friends of mine and I went out to the local shooting
> range and used them for target practice. Same (lack of exciting)
> results you saw. A paint can full of water is a lot more fun.

We tried to break the screen with target arrows. A few good shots could
crack it. This was in the Bronx. Firing a gun would draw too much attention.

So, it's the "implosion myth".

--
Dan Espen

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 7:49:35 AM UTC-6, Magnus Olsson wrote:
>
>> Personally, I can see the appeal in all these reasons but CRTs have a
>> rather large footprint and I don't really have the desk space for one.
>
> What with the implosion hazard, high voltages, and X-rays, if one has
> small children or pets, I
> can certainly see someone deciding to resist the pull of nostalgia.

IME you really have to work at it to get one to implode. The desk space
issue is probably a bigger problem.

>
> Plus, with the passage of time, such items are now expensive antiques instead of cheap
> junk.
>
> John Savard
>

--
Pete

> When the computer center on campus was disposing of a bunch of CRT
> terminals some friends of mine and I went out to the local shooting
> range and used them for target practice. Same (lack of exciting)
> results you saw. A paint can full of water is a lot more fun.

You need old Toughbooks to shoot. A rifle round has enough power to get
the magnesium to flare as it goes through. (A 9mm handgun doesn't have
enough power to _get_ through.)

De

On Wed, 18 May 2022 15:11:48 -0400, Dan Espen wrote:
>
> We tried to break the screen with target arrows. A few good shots could
> crack it. This was in the Bronx. Firing a gun would draw too much attention.

*LOL* (for the gun)

> So, it's the "implosion myth".

A father of a friend owned a shop selling TV and radio equipment. In the
garden behind the shop were dead TV. We smashed some screens with a
hammer. I can confirm they did not implode.
--
Andreas

On 2022-05-17 16:47, Dan Espen wrote:
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>
>> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
>>> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
>>> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>>>
>>> The only thing that I ask is that it has a serial port that doesn't require a
>>> lot of modifications to get going, isn't too rare and therefore expensive, and
>>> I am partial to amber screens instead of green screens.
>>>
>>> Like I said, I'm not looking to buy anything yet but if you have any
>>> suggestions on what to keep an eye out for, please let me know.
>>>
>>> Jason
>>
>> Lear-Siegler ADM-3A.
>
> xterm! rxvt! putty!
>
> Can't imagine actually wanting a tube CRT in my house.

I use a VT525 with an LCD screen. Real terminal, nice screen. Can't beat
that. :-)

Johnny

On 2022-05-17 12:57, Jason Evans wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>
> The only thing that I ask is that it has a serial port that doesn't require a
> lot of modifications to get going, isn't too rare and therefore expensive, and
> I am partial to amber screens instead of green screens.
>
> Like I said, I'm not looking to buy anything yet but if you have any
> suggestions on what to keep an eye out for, please let me know.

A little unclear what "best" means. But anyway, there are plenty of
semi-modern used terminals available.
Looking at ebay for VT terminals turns up plenty. But the prices vary a
lot, with the majority looking to be about the $500 range, but there are
some that are cheaper.

I'm sure if you search around, you find more places. And I've not tried
looking for any other terminal models either. I like the DEC VT
series... :-)

Johnny

Once upon a time, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> said:
>I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
>dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
>like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.

One additional thought: using a traditional hardware terminal for
something modern like a Pi could be problematic - newer stuff like that
pretty much assumes full ANSI plus Unicode. ANSI is (more or less) a
superset of VT102/VT220, so most escape sequences will work on a classic
terminal, but Unicode definitely won't.

--
Chris Adams <cmadams@cmadams.net>

Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
....
> A father of a friend owned a shop selling TV and radio equipment. In the
> garden behind the shop were dead TV. We smashed some screens with a
> hammer. I can confirm they did not implode.

i was sitting right next to an old B&W TV when the screen
broke. no idea why, i hadn't even touched it. it didn't
implode or explode - more like a cracking noise and then it
sorta crumbled. considering i haven't thought of this in
some 40-50yrs i'm surprised at how much of it i remember.

songbird

Once upon a time, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:
> i was sitting right next to an old B&W TV when the screen
>broke. no idea why, i hadn't even touched it. it didn't
>implode or explode - more like a cracking noise and then it
>sorta crumbled. considering i haven't thought of this in
>some 40-50yrs i'm surprised at how much of it i remember.

When I was like 3 years old, my sister was sitting across the room while
I was eating cereal. She did something that annoyed me, so I chucked my
cereal bowl at her (given where she said I was sitting and how far and
accurate my throw went, my parents should have signed me up for Little
League ASAP).

She ducked, and instead of hitting her, the bowl hit the big old console
TV she was sitting in front of. The bowl broke of course, but it did
crack the screen, just off center. For some years after, it looked like
there was a fly on the screen, or news announcers had something stuck in
their teeth.

No implosion though.

--
Chris Adams <cmadams@cmadams.net>

On 05/17/22 11:57, Jason Evans wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>
> The only thing that I ask is that it has a serial port that doesn't require a
> lot of modifications to get going, isn't too rare and therefore expensive, and
> I am partial to amber screens instead of green screens.
>
> Like I said, I'm not looking to buy anything yet but if you have any
> suggestions on what to keep an eye out for, please let me know.
>
> Jason

If you must have a real terminal, then a dec vt100 vt220 or up
would guarantee it would work with any vt100 compatable system.

Use minicom under FreeBSD or Linux here most of the time. Not
perfect, but gets the job done...

Chris

On 05/19/22 10:56, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2022-05-17 16:47, Dan Espen wrote:
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like
>>>> to find an
>>>> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry
>>>> pi. I'd
>>>> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>>>>
>>>> The only thing that I ask is that it has a serial port that doesn't
>>>> require a
>>>> lot of modifications to get going, isn't too rare and therefore
>>>> expensive, and
>>>> I am partial to amber screens instead of green screens.
>>>>
>>>> Like I said, I'm not looking to buy anything yet but if you have any
>>>> suggestions on what to keep an eye out for, please let me know.
>>>>
>>>> Jason
>>>
>>> Lear-Siegler ADM-3A.
>>
>> xterm! rxvt! putty!
>>
>> Can't imagine actually wanting a tube CRT in my house.
>
> I use a VT525 with an LCD screen. Real terminal, nice screen. Can't beat
> that. :-)
>
> Johnny

Lucky man :-)...

On Thu, 19 May 2022 19:55:40 +0100
chris <chris-nospam@tridac.net> wrote:

> On 05/19/22 10:56, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> > I use a VT525 with an LCD screen. Real terminal, nice screen. Can't beat
> > that. :-)
> >
> > Johnny
>
> Lucky man :-)...

ISTM that a Raspberry Pi, good keyboard, LCD monitor and
USB<->RS232 dongle could make a very nice terminal - just a SMOP.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

cmadams@cmadams.net (Chris Adams) writes:

> Once upon a time, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> said:
>>I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
>>dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
>>like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>
> One additional thought: using a traditional hardware terminal for
> something modern like a Pi could be problematic - newer stuff like that
> pretty much assumes full ANSI plus Unicode. ANSI is (more or less) a
> superset of VT102/VT220, so most escape sequences will work on a classic
> terminal, but Unicode definitely won't.

Easibus peasibus ... set your locale to iso-8859-1 ... That is
almost-exactly the Digital Extended Character set. If there's glitches
it's going to be in something like the ij character.

On 18/05/2022 14:49, Magnus Olsson wrote:
> 2. Nostalgia value, if you first cut your teeth on that kind of equipment.

This.

I have an ICL branded Kokusai terminal on the shelf behind me, and I
need to get around to repairing the PSU on the computer it belongs to.

When I do I know it will power up with the time and date set to the time
and date of my eldest son's birth as the RTC battery is long dead.

My son is pushing 40...

Andy

Lawrence Statton (NK1G <lawrenabae@abaluon.abaom> wrote:
> cmadams@cmadams.net (Chris Adams) writes:
>
>> Once upon a time, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> said:
>>> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
>>> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
>>> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>>
>> One additional thought: using a traditional hardware terminal for
>> something modern like a Pi could be problematic - newer stuff like that
>> pretty much assumes full ANSI plus Unicode. ANSI is (more or less) a
>> superset of VT102/VT220, so most escape sequences will work on a classic
>> terminal, but Unicode definitely won't.
>
> Easibus peasibus ... set your locale to iso-8859-1 ... That is
> almost-exactly the Digital Extended Character set. If there's glitches
> it's going to be in something like the ij character.
>
>

It would be a fun project to read a datastream including Unicode characters
and convert the character data to a bitmap to be written to the screen.

--
Pete

On 05/19/22 20:19, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Thu, 19 May 2022 19:55:40 +0100
> chris<chris-nospam@tridac.net> wrote:
>
>> On 05/19/22 10:56, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>>> I use a VT525 with an LCD screen. Real terminal, nice screen. Can't beat
>>> that. :-)
>>>
>>> Johnny
>>
>> Lucky man :-)...
>
> ISTM that a Raspberry Pi, good keyboard, LCD monitor and
> USB<->RS232 dongle could make a very nice terminal - just a SMOP.
>

Right, and there is a packaged pi with inbuilt keyboard available
now. Not too expensive either and could be tempted. Rpi comes of
age, sort of...

Chris

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:

> Lawrence Statton (NK1G <lawrenabae@abaluon.abaom> wrote:
>> cmadams@cmadams.net (Chris Adams) writes:
>>
>>> Once upon a time, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> said:
>>>> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
>>>> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
>>>> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>>>
>>> One additional thought: using a traditional hardware terminal for
>>> something modern like a Pi could be problematic - newer stuff like that
>>> pretty much assumes full ANSI plus Unicode. ANSI is (more or less) a
>>> superset of VT102/VT220, so most escape sequences will work on a classic
>>> terminal, but Unicode definitely won't.
>>
>> Easibus peasibus ... set your locale to iso-8859-1 ... That is
>> almost-exactly the Digital Extended Character set. If there's glitches
>> it's going to be in something like the ij character.
>>
>>
>
> It would be a fun project to read a datastream including Unicode characters
> and convert the character data to a bitmap to be written to the screen.

It's not at all hard, just tedious. First you convert the UTF-8 stream
(since virtually all Unicode text streams use it) into a sequence of
unicode code-points. The trickiest part is dealing with composite
forms. And just the volume - there are currently about 145,000 defined
code-points, and folks are adding more every edition.

On Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 6:57:16 AM UTC-4, Jason Evans wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.
>
> The only thing that I ask is that it has a serial port that doesn't require a
> lot of modifications to get going, isn't too rare and therefore expensive, and
> I am partial to amber screens instead of green screens.
>
> Like I said, I'm not looking to buy anything yet but if you have any
> suggestions on what to keep an eye out for, please let me know.

If I needed a serial terminal to manage an rPi, I think I would use another rPi. Isn't that a good solution?

There is a reason why terminals don't exist much anymore.

On Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 6:57:16 AM UTC-4, Jason Evans wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to be moving soon and after I get settled in, I would like to find an
> dumb terminal that I can use with a serial connection to a raspberry pi. I'd
> like any suggestions you might have for such a machine.

My favorite remains the Wyse 50 with an amber phosphor tube. The green phosphor models can be
found, but not the amber. I curse myself for leaving mine behind.

But you have to disable the "Function" key in the lower left of the keyboard (X-Acto). If not,
you will curse every time you press it by mistake.

-Dai

On Sun, 29 May 2022 10:29:16 -0700 (PDT)
Daiyu Hurst <daiyu.hurst@gmail.com> wrote:

> My favorite remains the Wyse 50 with an amber phosphor tube. The green
> phosphor models can be found, but not the amber. I curse myself for
> leaving mine behind.

Have you ever tried to reproduce that amber on a colour monitor ?
I've never been able to get it right, I'm not convinced it's possible.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/