3 ms·

I was discussing an identical project with a coworker a while back, and have been stalking ebay for VT2X0s occasionally since. However they seem to be incredibl

I was discussing an identical project with a coworker a while back, and have been stalking ebay for VT2X0s occasionally since. However they seem to be incredibly rare in the UK, and all the listings shown require shipping from the US with monstrous fees. Although my idea was not necessarily integration in to my work flow, more a dashboard of network/server stats etc.

Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
Author here. I got the pictured one refurbished through vecmar.com, and I just bought a second one on eBay (for use at home).
- vmorgulis 11y ago
  Very cool post :) The VT220 supports Sixels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel I wonder if PySixel would work on real hardware: https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel HN thread about libsixel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367
  - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
    That's pretty cool! It reminds me of a similar project I did called z80e, which is an emulator for TI calculators [0]. It uses unicode braille to "render" the screen onto a terminal. Doesn't work on the VT220, though, for obvious reasons. [0] https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e
    - vmorgulis 11y ago
      Fascinating! I'm reading the source code of z80e (tui.c). Your idea of using unicode to display pixels is very interesting. I imagine a fallback mode for libsixel for terminals not sixel-compatible (or the opposite). I try ton compile but it fails (first because scas was missing and now I have an "a2x: not found" in scas). I appreciate a lot the "multitarget rendering" (emscripten, tui, sdl...).
      - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
        a2x should be provided by the asciidoc package on your distribution. It's used to compile man pages. I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support!
        vmorgulis 11y ago
        > a2x should be provided by the asciidoc ... Yes, thank you (I'm on Debian). I know a bit more after reading the wiki. I will follow the instructions for the sdk. > I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support! Cool! I'm discovering the new world of custom tools for TI (KnightOS, Axe Parser, OS2...). I will look at the SDL UI to see what I can do. BTW z80 is good target for superoptimization and I'm very impressed by your toolchain and its history :)
  - jhallenworld 11y ago
    I remember someone at school wrote a program to inspect a remote Decstation 3100 (1024x864x1) screen on a vt320. Frequently people were running X with "xhost +".
VLM 11y ago
Hang out with the retrocomputing people. Also to some extent the ham radio people, at least some of them. The business model for the $200 Wyse-60 is OMG our CNC milling machine's terminal is down and every day of production we miss on the missile contract costs us $50K, so I don't care how much it costs, ship one here by tomorrow morning, etc etc. Or you can haul away a Wyse-60 for free because the previous owner won't have to pay electronic recycling fee. That's the model I have. Its pretty nice for a dumb terminal. Aside from plugging into a linux box and having another cheap screen for scrolling logs or whatever, I mostly use it for exotic hardware. Software terminals are generally not as compatible as hardware terminals (despite hardware terminals mostly being SBCs with exotic firmware) and if a hardware fault puts 220V on a connector and vaporizes my "free" terminal I'll be much less unhappy than if it vaporized my expensive main computer or even a rasp-pi. Also they boot very quickly, 3 seconds from flip the power to work, whereas a "modern advanced" computer takes maybe 5-10 minutes. So from a stopped condition, "I just wanna know if this PLC is alive or dead" can be answered in 6 seconds instead of 6 minutes. Given that you can haul them away for free, depending how many dumb mistakes I make, I have roughly a lifetime supply. Restoration of old hardware can be entertaining as a hobby in itself, I have to rip out the (inevitably leaking) dead nicads and replace them with a diode and dual AA battery holder, at least on my Wyse-60's.

Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago

Author here. I got the pictured one refurbished through vecmar.com, and I just bought a second one on eBay (for use at home).

vmorgulis 11y ago
Very cool post :) The VT220 supports Sixels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel I wonder if PySixel would work on real hardware: https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel HN thread about libsixel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340367
- Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
  That's pretty cool! It reminds me of a similar project I did called z80e, which is an emulator for TI calculators [0]. It uses unicode braille to "render" the screen onto a terminal. Doesn't work on the VT220, though, for obvious reasons. [0] https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e https://github.com/KnightOS/z80e
  - vmorgulis 11y ago
    Fascinating! I'm reading the source code of z80e (tui.c). Your idea of using unicode to display pixels is very interesting. I imagine a fallback mode for libsixel for terminals not sixel-compatible (or the opposite). I try ton compile but it fails (first because scas was missing and now I have an "a2x: not found" in scas). I appreciate a lot the "multitarget rendering" (emscripten, tui, sdl...).
    - Sir_Cmpwn 11y ago
      a2x should be provided by the asciidoc package on your distribution. It's used to compile man pages. I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support!
      - vmorgulis 11y ago
        > a2x should be provided by the asciidoc ... Yes, thank you (I'm on Debian). I know a bit more after reading the wiki. I will follow the instructions for the sdk. > I'd merge a pull request adding libsexl support! Cool! I'm discovering the new world of custom tools for TI (KnightOS, Axe Parser, OS2...). I will look at the SDL UI to see what I can do. BTW z80 is good target for superoptimization and I'm very impressed by your toolchain and its history :)
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  I remember someone at school wrote a program to inspect a remote Decstation 3100 (1024x864x1) screen on a vt320. Frequently people were running X with "xhost +".

VLM 11y ago

Hang out with the retrocomputing people. Also to some extent the ham radio people, at least some of them. The business model for the $200 Wyse-60 is OMG our CNC milling machine's terminal is down and every day of production we miss on the missile contract costs us $50K, so I don't care how much it costs, ship one here by tomorrow morning, etc etc. Or you can haul away a Wyse-60 for free because the previous owner won't have to pay electronic recycling fee. That's the model I have. Its pretty nice for a dumb terminal. Aside from plugging into a linux box and having another cheap screen for scrolling logs or whatever, I mostly use it for exotic hardware. Software terminals are generally not as compatible as hardware terminals (despite hardware terminals mostly being SBCs with exotic firmware) and if a hardware fault puts 220V on a connector and vaporizes my "free" terminal I'll be much less unhappy than if it vaporized my expensive main computer or even a rasp-pi. Also they boot very quickly, 3 seconds from flip the power to work, whereas a "modern advanced" computer takes maybe 5-10 minutes. So from a stopped condition, "I just wanna know if this PLC is alive or dead" can be answered in 6 seconds instead of 6 minutes. Given that you can haul them away for free, depending how many dumb mistakes I make, I have roughly a lifetime supply. Restoration of old hardware can be entertaining as a hobby in itself, I have to rip out the (inevitably leaking) dead nicads and replace them with a diode and dual AA battery holder, at least on my Wyse-60's.