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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: brimborion on Sat, 21 February 2015, 13:11:45
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I shudder whenever I hear of someone harvesting the switches from an old terminal keyboard. Someday the keyboards on my serial terminals will die and I'll have to convert a PC keyboard to work with it. I don't use them as much as I used to but they are handy for tailing logs, command line work, or using text-based editors. And nothing compares for playing Nethack. And you still get to use the black switches on the keyboard.
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+1
Although I'm looking for a dead, plastic all-in-one terminal so that I can use it in my NDG terminal project.
Absolutely no luck so far - the only one I've found is a working IBM terminal with a separate M122 keyboard.
I do have a Link terminal connected via USB adapter to my server (only because my VT220 seems to have died).
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This is why I kept my Wyse WY-50 as a complete unit. I like to keep them mostly original and use them as best I can.
However, I can't exactly blame people for gutting them. It makes sense, and to expect people to keep them complete is a lot to ask.
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It's hard enough finding a terminal for a reasonable price nowadays, much less getting it to work on a modern Linux distro. They have deprecated out-of-the-box support for just about everything save the VT100. The WYSE 50 terminal I bought has no VT100 emulation. I'm no Linux noob, and I'm not afraid to work at command line, but trying to get that thing working was just too much. I can't really blame people for salvaging the keyboards only to harvest switches.
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I'm finding it easier to find keyboards than terminals myself.
I have a WY-55 myself which emulates damn near anything you can think of and that comes stock with a Wyse ASCII board with the blacks.
I also have a Wyse PCE board and Wyse 85 keyboard, both with blacks but no terminals. Wonder if they'll work with the 55...hmm.
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My Link terminal, btw, has MX blacks in it. For a while back in the early days, I used the keycaps on my QFR, but they are now restored to their rightful place on the Link keyboard.
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I'm not beside myself with rage about it; I get why people would do it.
It's hard enough finding a terminal for a reasonable price nowadays, much less getting it to work on a modern Linux distro. They have deprecated out-of-the-box support for just about everything save the VT100. The WYSE 50 terminal I bought has no VT100 emulation. I'm no Linux noob, and I'm not afraid to work at command line, but trying to get that thing working was just too much. I can't really blame people for salvaging the keyboards only to harvest switches.
Yeah, if the terminal doesn't do VT-100 it's hard to get full functionality with any serious terminal-based programs. I've tried using all of the modes my Link MC5 has with the correct TERM string and didn't get far, only VT-100 really is supported.
Another thing that might cause problems for people is buying a terminal and an off-the-shelf null-modem cable and expecting to get more than 9600 baud; I couldn't get faster speeds until I actually built cables with proper flow control based on the Linux Terminal How-To and the FreeBSD manual.
Mostly I am just old and find the amber glow strangely calming.
I do have a Link terminal connected via USB adapter to my server (only because my VT220 seems to have died).
My VT-220 died also, and at the time I got rid of the keyboard with it, but I remember it being very mushy. Was yours mushy also? I wonder if it was just mine.
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I do have a Link terminal connected via USB adapter to my server (only because my VT220 seems to have died).
My VT-220 died also, and at the time I got rid of the keyboard with it, but I remember it being very mushy. Was yours mushy also? I wonder if it was just mine.
The company I work for used to do a lot of VMS stuff, and I inherited all the servers and some of the terminals when we moved on.
I have one VT220 terminal, three VT220 keyboards, and one VT420 terminal + keyboard.
All of those keyboards are mushy.
I even pulled apart one VT220 terminal to clean it, and got the keycaps and case looking almost as good as new, but the internals are all fixed together and apart from brushing decades of dust out, there wasn't much IO could do about it.
They are not at the mechanical keyboard level, but they are not bad for a throw-away terminal keyboard.