Open source, stand alone, ASCII terminal project

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- On Tue, 12/2/08, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:

> > not having to haul a[n old] laptop around for a serial
> terminal will be a
> > huge boon.  There's a keyboard just about
> anywhere, and I envision  a
> > "production" model with, say, a 5" LCD
> in the case, running on batteries.
> >  Literally a shirt-pocket terminal.
> 
> If you know of a smallish VGA LCD, that'd be great.  I
> myself have
> nothing smaller than about 12", larger than my Planar
> ELT-320
> terminals.
> 
> I like it because you can show up on site with just the
> pocket-sized
> box and a wall-wart, and use available resources (kb and
> monitor)
> rather than hauling them around.

The great thing about a project like this, is that you can build it however you want. Another option would be to build it right onto a PS/2 keybord. Not necessarily _into_ because it'd be quite hard to make it all fit, but you could have it as a flat box affixed to the bottom of the keyboard itself. You could even have a rechargable battery for power (and, of course a power socket for a wall wart). Then, you could simply have one device - this thickened keyboard - and you can plug it right into any monitor and go. 

But, once again, here's the beauty of this project - build it however you like, build it into whatever you want. If I get around to building one, I'm probably going to have both male and female 25 pin connectors on the back, wired in parallel, as DTE. Add a second set of 25 pin connectors wired the other way (DCE) - eliminating the need for null modem adapters and gender changers. You could only use one plug at a time, but at least one of the four should work.

Of course, it all depends on your tastes and what you need in your life - and wether you have more monitors or keyboards laying around. Myself, I seem to have more terminals laying around, but, it's sometimes a pain in the neck to get past their individual quirks. For example, I've been working on a project centered around a PC, and while it's VGA output and keyboard are busy being dedicated to the application I'm setting up, I have a terminal plugged in to edit files and issue commands, without having to quit out of the other app. I'm using a Televideo 921, which, while it has a termcap entry, it still doesn't work properly. None of the screen editors want to cooperate. I've found that if I lie and say it's an adm3a, it works, but then I lose other functionality (arrow keys stop working, occasional display glitches), but at least I can run vi.

-Ian