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Seeking Information: DIY dumb terminal/typewriter terminal

C

Christoffer

Experienced Member
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Oct 15, 2014
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299
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Denmark
Hello again!

So I've been messing around with the idea of building a vintage-style* terminal for with which to communicate with my other systems.
Browsing through magazine articles and the internet in general, i can't find much about this topic. Besides the TV typewriters, which seem to
require some special chips that are near impossible to find.
I've been using either a modern pc with usb->serial and a MAX232 RS232 driver, but since my usb to serial cable is actually secretly an arduino uno, it kinda kills the vintage vibe.
I'm also using a MS DOS PC from the late 90's with a terminal program, but i'd like to replace both solutions with a system i actually find interesting.
Does anyone know of any projects falling in this category? any articles or magazines? schematics?
Thanks in advance -
- Christoffer

*(vintage style=hardware/design/components older than ~1985)
 
Sure that kit terminals 'glass teletypes' were available in the early 80s. SWTP and Practical Electronics in the UK spring to mind. Both based on the 6845 and 2102 or 2114 SRAMs from memory.

A search might turn up something.
 
I think it would be feasible, but I think that some additional input about your needs would be useful.

What do you intend to use for a display? CRT or LCD? (Important because text-capable LCDs are cheaply available and cut out the whole issue of the CRTC).

What do you intend to use for a keyboard? Parallel-output keyboards cut down on the needs for scanning and de-serializing. Back in the day, keyboards with parallel output were pretty easy to find. Not so much today.

Do you intend to display graphics or colors? (adds a layer of complexity) How complete a set of features? In other words, do you intend to support the whole of the VT220 set?

The simplest "pseudo retro" design I've seen used a ATMEGA8 driving a CRT display and using a PC keyboard. Mono text only. There was also a pretty cute design using a Parallax Propeller.

Neither very "retro", but not bleeding edge either. I did a simple monochrome terminal for Fortune Systems back around 1982 that used a couple of Z80 DARTs and a Z80 and 6845. Custom keyboard; supported Teletext encoding for characters.

You could just as easily pick up a "thin client" on the surplus/salvage market and hook a keyboard and monitor to it if you weren't terribly into echt retro.
 
How about a Commodore 128 in 80 column mode with some terminal software, a Peak modem interface, and null modem adapter? Cheap, vintage, small footprint, not a lot of work to set up.
 
Thanks for all the info! The ZRT-80 as well as other MPU models does look really interesting! Though, I must say I was trying to advoid a processor. I know, a bit strange in the VINTAGE COMPUTER scope, but really, I've been locked up in the:
10 to build a computer
20 to use a computer
30 to build a computer
40 goto 10
- loop a couple of times, and it can make the process a bit tedious. The TV typewriter seemed like the ideal choice, but some of the character generating/CRT controlling parts are kinda hard to get to today.
I have looked at the TV-typewriter serial interface, and i was wondering: would it be at all possible (read: not insanely complex) to modify an electronic typewriter for this purpose?
Simply take the keyboard input after the interface chip (I assume that's ASCII format or close to), and have a bit of logic interface with a send and a receive UART?
Thus allowing the typewriter to act as terminal? Has this been done in the past?

-Thanks again,

--Christoffer
 
This does point up a vintage concept--that before the PC--and in particular, before the clone wars lowered the cost of a PC, terminals were ubiquitous. Wyse made their bundle on selling low-cost WY-50s, for example. After it became obvious that you could do more with a PC that scarcely cost more than a good terminal, terminals, particularly dumb terminals fell into obscurity.
 
If you're in Europe and you want a serial terminal it would be hard to argue with picking up something like this Axel AX3000/M55 for EUR 1.00
http://www.ebay.com/itm/311283045974

I have a couple of AX3000/M75 and they work OK though I haven't really had a need to use them much.

Of course that doesn't help if the real goal is to build something with your own hands using only vintage tech.
 
GottaLottaStuff said:
How about a Commodore 128 in 80 column mode with some terminal software, a Peak modem interface, and null modem adapter? Cheap, vintage, small footprint, not a lot of work to set up.
Click to expand...

Dag nabbit! That's a really good idea, and I have everything I need to do that, except a place to set up the '128.

I've been trying to use an Apple ][+ and keep running into dead ends. My latest one is RAM. (I need a terminal for my NetBSD "smart" TV setup and don't have anywhere to set up a dumb terminal).
 
Does there exist any information on typewriter terminals in gereneral? - I've read somewhere that some Selectric models had this functionality,
but information seems to be sparse.
 
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