KTOD - Help me learn about the WYSE Terminals

[CPTBadAss]

Yesterday I discovered that one of the systems at work is based on the old WYSE computer or OS. It's a terminal session and it has buttons that you can click on in the GUI such as Do, Backtab, PF1, and F13-F20. Besides knowing what a WYSE keyboard looks something like...


From here.

I'd like to know more about the keyboard and WYSE. Was it an OS? A computer system? What was the design intent?

Teach me about the WYSE keyboard and the system associated.

It has been super entertaining for me to be clicking on the F20 button and knowing what the keyboard would have looked like. I wonder if I brought one of my boards in, like an M122, would it work with this system terminal program?

[nubbinator]

I know that one of the IMDs I went to for my conservatees still has a functional Wyse terminal with Wyse keyboard at the front desk, complete with CRT monitor with green text...or orange, it's been a few months since I was there.  They use it for patient information.

[CPTBadAss]

We use it as a parts database as well. I wonder if the WYSE terminals were designed for that purpose.

[xavierblak]

I don't know much about WYSE specifically but I believe the keyboards we're familar with as WYSE terminal keyboard were mostly used on what are often called Dumb Terminals.

Dumb terminals have no real OS and would rely on another mainframe or server to drive them. I used to work with dumb terminals that would connect to industrial devices over a serial connection. All the intelligence would live on the device and the terminal was just the input and output for interfacing with it. So you can compare them to how a web browser doesn't do much with out a server to connect to a dumb terminal can't do much with out something to connect to.

[CPTBadAss]

Cool! Thanks for the link .

[dorkvader]

The only one I've ever seen working was at the Virginia Tech Auctions. The auction company that ran it had a portable one connected to a marine battery. A man who looked like he was about 90 sat on a wheelchair an entered pricing / bid information into a WY-30 keyboard.

[jdcarpe]

When I was a deputy sheriff in 1996-1998, I worked in the jail. Many nights I worked in the intake area, where the inmates were booked into the system. We used WYSE terminals to input all the data from the inmates and their arrest sheets into their records. I got so proficient at the order of the screens which would come up and at transcribing data from the inmate's response to my questions, that I could actually enter the data faster than the terminal could communicate with the server.

Little did I know that I was using a mechanical keyboard with double shot keycaps and Cherry MX black switches.

I still miss the green phosphor glow from those terminal screens, though...

[CPTBadAss]

JD did you ever *not* work any job?? Seems like you've done it all. And I think that jwaz is going to be bringing some green phosphor glow to Keycon.

And thanks for sharing.

[jdcarpe]

JD did you ever *not* work any job??

I could never decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. People would ask me that question, and I didn't have a good answer. So I guess I just decided to try everything. Maybe I'm still not done trying?

[Pacifist]

When I was a deputy sheriff in 1996-1998, I worked in the jail. Many nights I worked in the intake area, where the inmates were booked into the system. We used WYSE terminals to input all the data from the inmates and their arrest sheets into their records. I got so proficient at the order of the screens which would come up and at transcribing data from the inmate's response to my questions, that I could actually enter the data faster than the terminal could communicate with the server.

Little did I know that I was using a mechanical keyboard with double shot keycaps and Cherry MX black switches.

I still miss the green phosphor glow from those terminal screens, though...

 

[jdcarpe]

Now ask me what kind of terminals we used when I was a Russian linguist in the Air Force. )

They were Sun SparcStations. I liked those Sun keyboards.

[strict]

The level of smoothness on the vintage blacks harvested from WYSE terminals seems to vary quite a bit. I have bought two so far, one from eth0s that got me almost 40 ridiculously smooth blacks and I just got another on ebay that resulted in about 5 total switches that I was happy with. Maybe my expectations of how smooth I want my switches is just really high but damn near every switch I got out of that ebay board felt no different than a new black/red switch.

At this rate I'm going to end up gutting probably 4-5 WYSE terminal boards until I have enough MX blacks that I consider smooth enough to warrant outfitting an entire TKL with them.