Re: lynx-dev Re: Confused Display on Quicklink terminal on Win 95 (was: [no useful subject])

[David Woolley]

> Shall try all your suggestions.  By the way what is VT100, how do i get it
> and use it.  Sorry to be such a dumbo but am really dying to get on the
> real stuff like TCP/IP.

VT 100 is the dedicated computer terminal first produced by Digital 
Equipment Corporation about 20 years ago.  It was two tone brown, as I
remember it, and had a quite chunky keyboard, and a green on black display.
It implemented the American National Standard Institute's terminal control
codes.

You get it from a computer junk sale and plug it into the mains and the
serial port on your modem.

Most microcomputer terminal emulators these days are based on the ANSI
standard and most implement sufficient of it in common with the VT100, that
telling the host computer that it is talking to a VT100 works reasonably
well.

(Microsoft's ANSI.SYS also implements the ANSI standards, but is not that
well matched to a VT100.  Their Windows terminal emulators claim to simulate
a VT100, but don't do it well.)

Unix systems also have to be told that they are dealing with a VT100, as
well written software is written in a general way, that uses a file of
terminal descriptions.  (I believe some Lynx features, possibly keyboard
functions keys, probably colours, assume an ANSI terminal - reall VT100s 
don't have colour.)