VT100
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The VT100 was a video terminal made by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which became the de facto standard used by terminal emulators. It was introduced in August 1978, following its predecessor, the VT52, and communicated with its host system over serial lines using the ASCII character set and control sequences (a.k.a. escape sequences) standardized by ANSI. In fact, the VT100 was the first terminal to implement a subset of the standard proposed by ANSI in X3.64. The VT100 was also the first Digital mass-market terminal to incorporate "graphic renditions" (blinking, bolding, reverse video, and underlining) as well as a selectable 80 or 132 column display. All setup of the VT100 was accomplished using interactive displays presented on the screen; the setup data was stored in non-volatile memory within the terminal. The VT100 also introduced an additional character set that allowed the drawing of on-screen forms.
The control sequences used by the VT100 family are based on the ECMA-48 standard (also ISO/IEC 6429).
The VT100 was also the first of Digital's terminals to be based upon an industry-standard microprocessor (in this case, the Intel 8080). Options could be added to the terminal to support an external printer and additional graphic renditions (the "AVO" Advanced Video Option). The VT100 also became a "platform" on which Digital constructed related products. The VT101 and VT102 were cost-reduced non-expandable follow-on products, with the VT102 including the AVO and serial printer port options of the VT100. The VT105 contained a simple graphics subsystem mostly-compatible with the earlier VT55. The VT125 added an implementation of the byte-efficient ReGIS Remote Graphic Instruction Set. The VT103 added a built-in LSI-11 processor while the VT278 added a built-in PDP-8 processor, allowing the terminal to run Digital's WPS-8 word processing software. The VT180 (codenamed "Robin") added a single-board microcomputer using a Z80 to run CP/M.
In 1983, the VT100 was replaced by the more powerful VT200 series terminals such as the VT220.
See also
External links
- DEC video terminal history (http://vt100.net/vt_history)
- ECMA-48 (http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-048.htm)
- Current manufacturer of the VT terminals (http://www.boundless.com/Text_Terminals/VT/)