4 ms·

That's a double zombie. Wyse mainframe terminals were popular in the 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Wyse#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_W

That's a double zombie. Wyse mainframe terminals were popular in the 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Wyse#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Wyse#History

aidenn0 4y ago
My first IBM compatible was an AT class WYSE with passive main board. It was a decommissioned CAD machine so it has that high resolution Hercules monochrome display.
neilv 4y ago
The WY-50 and similar models were also popular for Unix systems and microcomputers. The screen looked great, IIRC they could do smooth scroll, and they were overall kinda stylish. (Though today in a vintage terminal I'd prefer the command set to be ANSI X3.64 or VT-102. Not Wyse, nor Televideo, nor something else.)
- rbanffy 4y ago
  IIRC, some of the WYSE terminals can do Tektronix graphics. AFAIK only DEC ones do ReGIS. Also, oddly enough, the last two generations of DEC serial terminals (the VT 400 and 500 series) dropped graphics support (they kept the 300 line in production for that). These machines should be extremely inexpensive to make (an 8-bit microcontroller, 68xx or 8032 and barely enough memory to back the display) back then and the high prices they commanded (and that ended up killing them) were very hard to justify in comparison with a PC. I miss these machines. Smooth scrolling (speed adjusted to keep up with the backlog) should be a thing in modern terminal windows.
  - neilv 4y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know that about Tek graphics in Wyse, nor about DEC dropping ReGIS. (I once tried shopping for an original Tek terminal, to play with the graphics, but prohibitively expensive, and also large.) One attraction of the later DEC terminals is that they can take a PS/2 keyboard, which are somewhat easier to find in good condition, and in compact versions, than the original DEC parts.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      > they can take a PS/2 keyboard The bright side is that their fonts are somewhat nicer. IIRC, a VT330 has 240 scanlines (even though ReGIS pretends it's 480)
dredmorbius 4y ago
Right. Also Unix serial terminals. There was a brief hint of a resurgence in the late 1990s with "thin-client" craze. We've got thin clients now, but they're phat, made by Apple and Samsung mostly, and fit in your pocket. For increasingly large values of pocket.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > but they're phat, made by Apple and Samsung mostly, and fit in your pocket. Also Chromebooks and those Windows laptops that can't do much more than running Chrome (and swapping to eMMC).
- jerf 4y ago
  Reminds me of RISC vs. CISC. Who won? Yes. Thin client or thick client? Yes.
  - davidf18 4y ago

That's a double zombie. Wyse mainframe terminals were popular in the 80's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Wyse#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Wyse#History

aidenn0 4y ago

My first IBM compatible was an AT class WYSE with passive main board. It was a decommissioned CAD machine so it has that high resolution Hercules monochrome display.

neilv 4y ago

The WY-50 and similar models were also popular for Unix systems and microcomputers. The screen looked great, IIRC they could do smooth scroll, and they were overall kinda stylish. (Though today in a vintage terminal I'd prefer the command set to be ANSI X3.64 or VT-102. Not Wyse, nor Televideo, nor something else.)

rbanffy 4y ago
IIRC, some of the WYSE terminals can do Tektronix graphics. AFAIK only DEC ones do ReGIS. Also, oddly enough, the last two generations of DEC serial terminals (the VT 400 and 500 series) dropped graphics support (they kept the 300 line in production for that). These machines should be extremely inexpensive to make (an 8-bit microcontroller, 68xx or 8032 and barely enough memory to back the display) back then and the high prices they commanded (and that ended up killing them) were very hard to justify in comparison with a PC. I miss these machines. Smooth scrolling (speed adjusted to keep up with the backlog) should be a thing in modern terminal windows.
- neilv 4y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know that about Tek graphics in Wyse, nor about DEC dropping ReGIS. (I once tried shopping for an original Tek terminal, to play with the graphics, but prohibitively expensive, and also large.) One attraction of the later DEC terminals is that they can take a PS/2 keyboard, which are somewhat easier to find in good condition, and in compact versions, than the original DEC parts.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > they can take a PS/2 keyboard The bright side is that their fonts are somewhat nicer. IIRC, a VT330 has 240 scanlines (even though ReGIS pretends it's 480)

dredmorbius 4y ago

Right. Also Unix serial terminals. There was a brief hint of a resurgence in the late 1990s with "thin-client" craze. We've got thin clients now, but they're phat, made by Apple and Samsung mostly, and fit in your pocket. For increasingly large values of pocket.

rbanffy 4y ago
> but they're phat, made by Apple and Samsung mostly, and fit in your pocket. Also Chromebooks and those Windows laptops that can't do much more than running Chrome (and swapping to eMMC).
jerf 4y ago
Reminds me of RISC vs. CISC. Who won? Yes. Thin client or thick client? Yes.
- davidf18 4y ago