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From: leichter@yale.UUCP (Jerry Leichter)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus
Subject: Re: vt62
Message-ID: <13516@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-Jul-87 17:51:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: yale-cel.13516
Posted: Sat Jul 11 17:51:06 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 16:53:33 EDT
References: <8707031724.AA22386@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Reply-To: leichter@yale-celray.UUCP (Jerry Leichter)
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT
Lines: 50

In article <8707031724.AA22386@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> aad+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
>
>I've got a vt62.  You've never heard of it?  I'm not suprised.  It looks
>like a vt52, with lots of differences.
>
> ...

The VT62 was a special-purpose terminal produced for the late, unlamented TRAX
operating system.  (Don't remember TRAX?  Hardly anyone does - it was a trans-
action processing system based on PDP-11's.  The hardware of the day was just
not up to the demands, and it flopped.)  VT62's were designed as block-mode
terminals, talking DDCMP over multi-drop sync lines.  I doubt there's anything
out there that you can connect a VT62 to like that today.

A variant on the VT62, the VT61, talked to async lines.  I wasn't aware that
VT62's could talk async...but it's been a while:  I still have a VT61 manual;
its copyright says 1976.

VT61's could be configured into a "fully host controlled" mode.  In this mode,
intended for "hostile" environments, the terminal couldn't initiate operations -
it had to wait for a poll from the host.  This mode was changeable by a switch
on the terminal; that's probably the one you have that's labeled "Don't touch".

The VT6x's were VERY sophisticated devices for their day.  They could do local
editing, including insert and delete line with the old stuff moving either
up or down, and justification.  (Yes, justification in the terminal before
transmission to the host.)  They supported three modes:  Character-at-a-time,
block, and forms.

The summary of VT61 commands runs two pages, and that's without explanations;
so I can't really type it in for you.  Here, however, are a couple of useful
commands that the VT61 had that aren't in a VT52 - try them out and see if you
can get your VT62 to use them:

		ESC P I		Enter INSERT mode
		ESC P i		Exit INSERT mode (enter REPLACE mode)
		ESC O J		Begin Reverse Video
		ESC O j		End Reverse Video
		ESC O E		Lock keyboard
		ESC O e		Unlock keyboard
		ESC O G		Enter Alarm mode (try it!)
		ESC O g		Exit Alarm mode
		ESC P S (or s)	Delete character
		ESC P D (or d)	Delete line, ripple up
		ESC O N		Delete line, ripple down
		ESC P F (or f)	Insert line, ripple down
		ESC O O		Insert line, ripple up
		ESC P E (or e)	Change emphasis (flip reverse video of char)

							-- Jerry