DEC VT100
The most successful terminal ever? Maybe, maybe not, but it definitely set the standard for all other terminals and formed the basis for many other emulations.
Digital's VT100 terminal
During the heyday of mainframe computing Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was one of the most successful manufacturers of host systems, second only to IBM. DEC produced popular systems such as the PDP-XX, VAX and MicroVAX and, in order to service the needs of these hosts, they also produced a complimentary range of proprietary terminals. The first of these video terminals, the VT05 (the VT, strangely enough, stands for Video Terminal) was released to market in 1970 and had very limited capability, essentially being a ‘glass teletype’ terminal. It also had a huge footprint, and a design which would have been quite at home on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Five years later The VT05 and was replaced by the similarly sized VT52. Like many terminals of the day The VT52 was controlled by the manufacturer’s own proprietary control codes, or escape sequences, which were used to control things like cursor movement, deletion, formatting and so on.
In the late 1970′s the American Nation Standards Institutes defined a standard for escape sequences referenced by the X3.64 standard. The VT100, released by DEC in 1978 was the companies’ first ANSI compliant terminal (though it did provide backward compatibility with the earlier VT52). On the strength of the companies host systems sales and the number of developers writing business applications taking advantage of new terminals’ features the VT100 became extremely successful. Many of these applications were also ported to other Unix based systems further adding to the popularity of the VT100. Soon other major terminal competitors, such as Wyse, included the VT100 emulation within there own units.
The VT100 architecture served as the foundation for further development and enhancement culminating in the release of its successors the VT220, VT300, VT420 and VT500 series. Some of the enhancement options made available to the various models included graphics, color, multi-session and multi-national character set support.
In the world of terminal emulation software the VT100 and successors (particularly the VT220) are a staple of many products. In fact unless your terminal emulator specializes in something like a IBM5250 or IBM3270, it is pretty much guaranteed to include a VT100 terminal. Hyper Terminal, installed by default in editions of Microsoft Windows up to an including Windows XP, included the VT52, VT100 and various other emulations. It was capable of modem and telnet connection to hosts. ( If you’re looking for a Hyperterminal replacement any of the free or commerical terminal emulators listed on the right will suffice )
For a more detailed history of the VT100 and DEC terminals in general head on over to http://VT100.net/vt_history