3 ms·
Real VT102 emulation with MAME (2020)
- ChicagoDave 2y agoI’d connect this to a pi running pdp-11 emulation. Now you’re back in 1982 land.
- technofiend 2y agoYes, exactly. Or if you don't have a pi handy maybe a couple of docker images to marry SIMH and MAME talking to each other.
- ChicagoDave 2y agoSomeone needs to hook an old card reader up to a pi.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago> To use a MAME-emulated VT102, you’ll need a couple of things: > A copy of the VT102 firmware ROM I've known for a long time that "terminal emulators" are software emulators of hardware terminals, but until now it never occurred to me that those hardware terminals might have still been largely software constructs.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoHardware terminals are emulators of teletypes. We used to call them "Glass Teletypes". It's emulation all the way down.
- akira2501 2y agoUsing an Intel 8080 no less. We squeezed computing out of the mainframe and into the terminal.
- chasil 2y agoAll the DEC terminals used Intel 8-bit microprocessors, starting with the VT-100 (I think).
- rbanffy 2y agoDid they get graphics working? I think it would be the 125, at least, but the 100 line is complicated, IIRC.
- j4_james 2y agoThey have a working VT240 which supports the Sixel, ReGIS, and Tektronix graphics protocols. They also have partially working VK100, which is a bit like a VT100 with some graphics support (I think just ReGIS). They don't have a working VT125 as far as I know.
- Firehawke 2y agoI've used something similar to get MAME's VT240 to talk to a WSL instance. Had to go dig up a forum post I wrote a few years back to find the exact commands. On the WSL Linux side: socat -d -d exec:'bash -li',pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane TCP-LISTEN:11313,reuseaddr,fork On the Windows side: .\mame.exe vt240 -window -host null_modem -bitb socket.10.0.0.2:11313
- j4_james 2y agoThe author mentions problems with flow control, but I'm fairly certain I got that working in MAME. If I remember correctly, you need to enable XON/XOFF in the VT102 configuration (it's one of the bits you can toggle on the SET-UP B page), and also enable it in MAME's Machine Configuration menu. Also make sure your modem settings in MAME match the settings configured on the VT102. I have them both set to 19200 baud 8N1. I've just done a quick test now, and I can definitely make it through tests 1 and 2 in vttest without the output getting corrupted. I should also mention that I've got the RS232 device set to null_modem (which is hooked up to a socat instance via MAME's bitbanger feature), rather than the pty configuration that they're using. I'm not sure if that could make a difference to the way the flow control works.
- opless 2y agoHave they got an AT&T gnot terminal running?
- criddell 2y agoI do not miss working on the VT102. The keyboards were terrible.
- skissane 2y ago> Unfortunately, the emulated VT102 is not connected through a real serial port, it’s connected through a PTY which (at least compared to what the VT102 expects) is basically infinitely fast. I’ve thought before that you could have a couple of USB-to-RS232 adapters and connect them together? What Linux needs is a real virtual serial driver. PTY isn’t it because it doesn’t fully emulate lower level aspects of RS-232 - it behaves differently from “connecting two RS-232 ports together”