3 ms·
No, terminals rarely if ever used TV-type tubes (before the home computer era had people using actual TVs) — usually not even the same phosphors — nor the same
by kps 7y ago
No, terminals rarely if ever used TV-type tubes (before the home computer era had people using actual TVs) — usually not even the same phosphors — nor the same signal rates, because TV rates would make no sense for a terminal. ‘Manufacture economically’ was not the same thing for a business product as a home appliance — an IBM 3278 in today's dollars cost $13000.
This isn't lost-clay-tablet stuff. There are manuals and schematics online.
- tyingq 7y agoThe vt220 manual I found suggests the same CRT scan rates. 15.75 Khz horizontal, for example, with the reference freq coming from a very TV specific Motorola IC. Perhaps different phosphors, sure.
- jacobush 7y agoDifferent phosphors for sure. My terminals (I've had 3 or 4 DEC and others) hade a very visible afterglow. Very stable and flickerfree compared to my CRT TVs.
- kps 7y agoThe VT220 was a very late terminal, though and I was trying to focus on early models where the line length decision was not just inherited from the previous CRT model (i.e. the VT220 had 80 columns because the VT100 did because the VT50 did).