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Welcome to my Reservoir of Terminal Clues concerning character-cell video-display terminals, serial-line remote-graphics terminals, and software that emulates them.
When I say character-cell terminal, I mean some keyboard-possessing device that is connected to a host computer by a serial cable and typically (if not exclusively) is used to display textual information arriving in the form of ASCII (or perhaps EBCDIC) characters. It is the thinnest possible thin client.
A serial-line remote-graphics-protocol terminal is also connected by a serial (usually RS-232-C) cable to a host, and it may display both ASCII text and graphics images sent to it by the remote host. Protocols for transmitting images include Tektronix vector graphics, DEC's ReGIS and Sixel protocols, and NAPLPS (North American Presentation-Level-Protocol Syntax).
X terminals in their own right are beyond the scope of this collection. An X terminal (such as one of these products still sold by NCD and Wyse Technology, or formerly made by Human Designed Systems/Neoware or Tektronix or Hewlett-Packard) speaks the X protocol, displays graphics in a completely bit-mapped fashion, and prefers to communicate over high-speed connections such as Ethernet. (Another variation on a "thin-client" device is the "Network Computer".) I do, however, keep some small amount of X information here, but focusing on how the xterm application emulates a character-cell terminal.
It is now necessary to point out that the technology covered by this web site does not include the so-called "Terminal Services" functions in Microsoft Windows, which use the proprietary Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). As the computer industry has come to expect, adopting a Microsoft protocol forces you to buy Microsoft software and stay in lockstep with the Redmond upgrade cycle.
The information contained here, largely archived from comp.terminals and several other Usenet discussion newsgroups, varies considerably in quality, and I personally wrote only a small part of it, but many people, who still have reason to use a terminal, have found it useful. There are no guarantees of applicability or fitness implied.
You should be able to access almost everything via HTTP. If you have trouble, let me know. If you possess information that you'd like to contribute to this collection, send me e-mail. Thanks.
...Richard S. Shuford
Introductory material copyright © 1995, 2001
and archive contents collection
copyright © 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
Richard S. Shuford
(my home page)
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This Frame Service is helpful to Lynx users.)
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