VT100

The VT100 was a Computer terminal with cathode screen produces by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which became a standard in fact in the field of the terminals.

The VT100 was marketed in August 1978, as a successor of VT52. It communicated with the system to which it was connected via lines series. The data were made up of characters ASCII and check codes (called escape sequences). These sequences allowed inter alia moving the point of writing to the screen, to modify the size of the lines (80 or 132 columns), to fix the attributes of the text (flickering, fat, Vidéo reverse, underlined) and to use a graphic character set (for the drawing of forms). These last functionalities were innovating at the time.

The configuration of the VT100 was carried out by means of interactive screens posted on the terminal itself. The parameters were safeguarded in a nonvolatile memory.

The sequences of control of the VT100 are based on the standard ECMA -48, also standardized ISO/IEC 6429 and ANSI X3.64. For these reasons, one speaks sometimes about codes of exhaust ANSI. The VT100 was not the first terminal to use the X3.64 standard: the Heath company had already produced a video terminal which used a subset of the standard.

The VT100 was the first terminal of DEC has to be equipped with a standard microprocessor of the market, the 8080 of Intel. One could associate with the terminal an external printer and a device of graphics and additional memory (the “AVO”, for advanced video option ). Without this last option, the VT100 could not post 24 lines of text when it functioned in mode 132 columns.

Versions at reduced cost of the VT100 were create thereafter: the VT101 and the VT102 (which was equipped with the AVO and the printer). The VT100 became a platform on which DEC built other products. The VT105 contained a simple graphic system, largely compatible with VT55. VT125 had an implementation of ReGIS, Remote Graphic Instruction Set . VT103 integrated a processor LSI-11, and VT278 a processor PDP-8, which enabled him to make function the text treatment of DEC WPS-8. VT180 (code name “Robin”) comprised a mother chart of microcomputer based on the Z80, which enabled him to make function CP/M.

In 1983, the VT100 was replaced by the series of VT200, for example VT220.

In August 1995, the branch “terminals” of DEC was sold with Boundless Technologies.

External bonds

Histoire of terminals DEC
'' The Files off Video Terminal Information ''
ECMA-48

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