Computer terminal

Acomputer terminalis an electronic orelectromechanicalhardwaredevice that can be used for entering data into, and transcribingdata from, acomputeror acomputingsystem.Most early computers only had afront panelto input or display bits and had to be connected to a terminal to print or input text through a keyboard.Teleprinterswere used as early-day hard-copy terminalsand predated the use of a computer screen by decades. The computer would typically transmit a line of data which would be printed on paper, and accept a line of data from a keyboard over a serial or other interface. Starting in the mid-1970s withmicrocomputerssuch as theSphere 1,Sol-20,andApple I,display circuitry and keyboards began to be integrated intopersonalandworkstationcomputer systems, with the computer handling character generation and outputting to aCRT displaysuch as acomputer monitoror, sometimes, a consumer TV, but most larger computers continued to require terminals.

TheDECVT100,a widely emulated computer terminal

IBM 2741,a widely emulated computer terminal in the 1960s and 1970s
(keyboard/printer)

Early terminals were inexpensive devices but very slow compared topunched cardsorpaper tapefor input; with the advent oftime-sharingsystems, terminals slowly pushed these older forms of interaction from the industry. Related development were the improvement of terminal technology and the introduction of inexpensivevideo displays.Early Teletypes only printed out with a communications speed of only 75 baud or 10 5-bit characters per second, and by the 1970s speeds of video terminals had improved to 2400 or 96002400 bit/s.Similarly, the speed of remote batch terminals had improved to4800 bit/sat the beginning of the decade and19.6 kbpsby the end of the decade, with higher speeds possible on more expensive terminals.

The function of a terminal is typically confined to transcription and input of data; a device with significant local, programmable data-processing capability may be called a "smart terminal" orfat client.A terminal that depends on the host computer for its processing power is called a "dumb terminal"or athin client.In the era of serial (RS-232) terminals there was a conflicting usage of the term "smart terminal" as a dumb terminal with no user-accessible local computing power but a particularly rich set of control codes for manipulating the display; this conflict was not resolved before hardware serial terminals became obsolete.

A personal computer can runterminal emulatorsoftware that replicates functions of a real-world terminal, sometimes allowing concurrent use of local programs and access to a distantterminal hostsystem, either over a direct serial connection or over a network using, e.g.,SSH.Today few if any dedicated computer terminals are being manufactured, as time sharing on large computers has been replaced by personal computers, handheld devices and workstations with graphical user interfaces. User interactions with servers use either software such asWeb browsers,or terminal emulators, with connections over high-speed networks.

History

The console ofKonrad Zuse'sZ3had a keyboard in 1941, as did theZ4in 1942–1945. However, these consoles could only be used to enter numeric inputs and were thus analogous to those of calculating machines; programs, commands, and other data were entered via paper tape. Both machines hada row of display lampsfor results.

In 1956, theWhirlwind Mark Icomputer became the first computer equipped with a keyboard-printer combination with which to support direct inputof data and commands and output of results. That device was aFriden Flexowriter,which would continue to serve this purpose on many other early computers well into the 1960s.

Categories

Hard-copy terminals

ATeletype Model 33ASR teleprinter, usable as a terminal

Closeup of an IBM 2741 printing terminal, which used a changeableSelectric"golfball" typing element and was faster than the earlier teletype machines

Early user terminals connected to computers were, like the Flexowriter, electromechanicalteleprinters/teletypewriters (TeleTYpewriter, TTY), such as theTeletype Model 33,originally used fortelegraphy;early Teletypes were typically configured asKeyboard Send-Receive(KSR) orAutomatic Send-Receive(ASR). Some terminals, such as the ASR Teletype models, included apaper tapereader and punch which could record output such as a program listing. The data on the tape could be re-entered into the computer using the tape reader on the teletype, or printed to paper. Teletypes used thecurrent loopinterface that was already used in telegraphy. A less expensiveRead Only(RO) configuration was available for the Teletype.

Custom-designs keyboard/printer terminals that came later included theIBM 2741(1965)and theDECwriter(1970).Respective top speeds of teletypes, IBM 2741 and the LA30 (an early DECwriter) were 10, 15 and 30 characters per second. Although at that time "paper was king"the speed of interaction was relatively limited.

The DECwriter was the last major printing-terminal product. It faded away after 1980 under pressure from video display units (VDUs), with the last revision (the DECwriter IV of 1982) abandoning the classic teletypewriter form for one more resembling a desktop printer.

Video display unit

Avideo display unit(VDU) displays information on a screen rather than printing text to paper and typically uses acathode-ray tube(CRT). VDUs in the 1950s were typically designed for displaying graphical data rather than text and were used in, e.g., experimental computers at institutions likeMIT;computers used in academia, government and business, sold under brand names likeDEC,ERA,IBMandUNIVAC;military computers supporting specific defence applications such asballistic missile warning systemsand radar/air defence coordination systems likeBUICandSAGE.

IBM 2260

Two early landmarks in the development of the VDU were theUnivac Uniscopeand theIBM 2260,both in 1964. These were block-mode terminals designed to display a page at a time, using proprietary protocols; in contrast to character-mode devices, they enter data from the keyboard into a display buffer rather than transmitting them immediately. In contrast to later character-mode devices, the Uniscope usedsynchronousserial communication over an EIARS-232interface to communicate between the multiplexer and the host, while the 2260 used either a channel connection orasynchronousserial communication between the2848and the host. The 2265, related to the 2260, also used asynchronous serial communication.

TheDatapoint 3300fromComputer Terminal Corporation,announced in 1967 and shipped in 1969, was a character-mode device that emulated aModel 33 Teletype.This reflects the fact that early character-mode terminals were often deployed to replace teletype machines as a way to reduce operating costs.

ADM-3A

VT52

VT100

The next generation of VDUs went beyond teletype emulation with an addressable cursor that gave them the ability to paint two-dimensional displays on the screen. Very early VDUs with cursor addressibility included theVT05and theHazeltine 2000operating in character mode, both from 1970. Despite this capability, early devices of this type were often called "Glass TTYs".Later, the term "glass TTY" tended to be restrospectively narrowed to devices without full cursor addressibility.

The classic era of the VDU began in the early 1970s and was closely intertwined with the rise oftime sharing computers.Important early products were theADM-3A,VT52,andVT100.These devices used no complicatedCPU,instead relying on individuallogic gates,LSIchips, or microprocessors such as theIntel 8080.This made them inexpensive and they quickly became extremely popular input-output devices on many types of computer system, often replacing earlier and more expensive printing terminals.

After 1970 several suppliers gravitated to a set of common standards:

• ASCIIcharacter set (rather than, say,EBCDICor anything specific to one company), but early/economy models often supported only capital letters (such as the originalADM-3,theData Generalmodel 6052 – which could be upgraded to a 6053 with a lower-case character ROM – and the Heathkit H9)
• RS-232serial ports (25-pin, ready to connect to a modem, yet some manufacturer-specific pin usage extended the standard, e.g. for use with 20-mAcurrent loops)
• 24 lines (or possibly 25 – sometimes a special status line) of 72 or 80 characters of text (80 was the same asIBMpunched cards). Later models sometimes had two character-width settings.
• Some type of cursor that can be positioned (with arrow keys or "home" and other direct cursor address setting codes).
• Implementation of at least 3 control codes:Carriage Return(Ctrl-M),Line-Feed(Ctrl-J), andBell(Ctrl-G), but usually many more, such asescape sequencesto provide underlining, dim or reverse-video character highlighting, and especially to clear the display and position the cursor.

The experimental era of serial VDUs culminated with theVT100in 1978. By the early 1980s, there were dozens of manufacturers of terminals, includingLear-Siegler,ADDS,Data General,DEC,Hazeltine Corporation,Heath/Zenith,Hewlett-Packard,IBM,TeleVideo,Volker-Craig, andWyse,many of which had incompatible command sequences (although many used the early ADM-3 as a starting point).

The great variations in the control codes between makers gave rise to software that identified and grouped terminal types so the system software would correctly display input forms using the appropriate control codes; InUnix-likesystems thetermcaporterminfofiles, the stty utility, and the TERM environment variable would be used; in Data General's Business BASIC software, for example, at login-time a sequence of codes were sent to the terminal to try to read the cursor's position or the 25th line's contents using a sequence of different manufacturer's control code sequences, and the terminal-generated response would determine a single-digit number (such as 6 for Data General Dasher terminals, 4 for ADM 3A/5/11/12 terminals, 0 or 2 for TTYs with no special features) that would be available to programs to say which set of codes to use.

The great majority of terminals were monochrome, manufacturers variously offering green, white or amber and sometimes blue screen phosphors. (Amber was claimed to reduce eye strain). Terminals with modest color capability were also available but not widely used; for example, a color version of the popular Wyse WY50, the WY350, offered 64 shades on each character cell.

VDUs were eventually displaced from most applications by networked personal computers, at first slowly after 1985 and with increasing speed in the 1990s. However, they had a lasting influence on PCs. The keyboard layout of theVT220terminal strongly influenced theModel Mshipped on IBM PCs from 1985, and through it all later computer keyboards.

Althoughflat-panel displayswere available since the 1950s, cathode-ray tubes continued to dominate the market until the personal computer had made serious inroads into the display terminal market. By the time cathode-ray tubes on PCs were replaced by flatscreens after the year 2000, the hardware computer terminal was nearly obsolete.

Character-oriented terminals

See also:Character device

A TelevideoASCIIcharacter mode terminal

Acharacter-oriented terminalis a type of computer terminal that communicates with its host one character at a time, as opposed to ablock-oriented terminalthat communicates in blocks of data. It is the most common type of data terminal, because it is easy to implement and program. Connection to the mainframe computer orterminal serveris achieved via RS-232 serial links,Ethernetor otherproprietary protocols.

Character-oriented terminals can be "dumb" or "smart". Dumb terminalsare those that can interpret a limited number of control codes (CR, LF, etc.) but do not have the ability to process special escape sequences that perform functions such as clearing a line, clearing the screen, or controlling cursor position. In this context dumb terminals are sometimes dubbedglass Teletypes,for they essentially have the same limited functionality as does a mechanical Teletype. This type of dumb terminal is still supported on modern Unix-like systems by setting theenvironment variableTERMtodumb.Smart or intelligent terminals are those that also have the ability to process escape sequences, in particular the VT52, VT100 or ANSI escape sequences.

Text terminals

A typical text terminal produces input and displays output and errors

Nanotext editor running in thextermterminal emulator

Atext terminal,or often justterminal(sometimestext console) is a serial computer interface for text entry and display. Information is presented asan array of pre-selected formed characters.When such devices use a video display such as acathode-ray tube,they are called a "video display unit"or" visual display unit "(VDU) or" video display terminal "(VDT).

Thesystem consoleis oftena text terminal used to operate a computer. Modern computers have a built-in keyboard and display for the console. Some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux andFreeBSDhave virtual consoles to provide several text terminals on a single computer.

The fundamental type of application running on a text terminal is acommand-line interpreterorshell,whichpromptsfor commands from the user and executes each command after a press ofReturn.This includesUnix shellsand someinteractive programmingenvironments. In a shell, most of the commands are small applications themselves.

Another important application type is that of thetext editor.A text editor typically occupies the full area of display, displays one or more text documents, and allows the user to edit the documents. The text editor has, for many uses, been replaced by theword processor,which usually provides rich formatting features that the text editor lacks. The first word processors used text to communicate the structure of the document, but later word processors operate in a graphical environment and provide aWYSIWYGsimulation of the formatted output. However, text editors are still used for documents containingmarkupsuch asDocBookorLaTeX.

Programs such asTelixandMinicomcontrol amodemand the local terminal to let the user interact with remote servers. On theInternet,telnetandsshwork similarly.

In the simplest form, a text terminal is like a file. Writing to the file displays the text and reading from the file produces what the user enters. In Unix-like operating systems, there are severalcharacter special filesthat correspond to available text terminals. For other operations, there are specialescape sequences,control charactersandtermiosfunctionsthat a program can use, most easily via a library such asncurses.For more complex operations, the programs can use terminal specificioctlsystem calls. For an application, the simplest way to use a terminal is to simply write and read text strings to and from it sequentially. The output text is scrolled, so that only the last several lines (typically 24) are visible.Unixsystems typicallybufferthe input text until the Enter key is pressed, so the application receives a ready string of text. In this mode, the application need not know much about the terminal. For many interactive applications this is not sufficient. One of the common enhancements iscommand-line editing(assisted with such libraries asreadline); it also may give access to command history. This is very helpful for various interactive command-line interpreters.

Even more advanced interactivity is provided withfull-screenapplications. Those applications completely control the screen layout; also they respond to key-pressing immediately. This mode is very useful for text editors,file managersandweb browsers.In addition, such programs control the color and brightness of text on the screen, and decorate it with underline, blinking and special characters (e.g.box-drawing characters). To achieve all this, the application must deal not only with plain text strings, but also with control characters and escape sequences, which allow moving thecursorto an arbitrary position, clearing portions of the screen, changing colors and displaying special characters, and also responding to function keys. The great problem here is that there are many different terminals and terminal emulators, each with its own set of escape sequences. In order to overcome this, speciallibraries(such ascurses) have been created, together with terminal description databases, such as Termcap and Terminfo.

Block-oriented terminals

Ablock-oriented terminalorblock mode terminalis a type of computer terminal that communicates with itshostin blocks of data, as opposed to acharacter-oriented terminalthat communicates with its host one character at a time. A block-oriented terminal may be card-oriented, display-oriented, keyboard-display, keyboard-printer, printer or some combination.

The IBM 3270 is perhaps the most familiar implementation of a block-oriented display terminal,but most mainframe computer manufacturers and several other companies produced them. The description below is in terms of the 3270, but similar considerations apply to other types.

Block-oriented terminals typically incorporate abufferwhich stores one screen or more of data, and also stores data attributes, not only indicating appearance (color, brightness, blinking, etc.) but also marking the data as being enterable by the terminal operator vs.protectedagainst entry, as allowing the entry of only numeric information vs. allowing any characters, etc. In a typical application the host sends the terminal a preformattedpanelcontaining both static data and fields into which data may be entered. The terminal operator keys data, such as updates in adatabaseentry, into the appropriate fields. When entry is complete (or ENTER or PF key pressed on 3270s), a block of data, usually just the data entered by the operator (modified data), is sent to the host in one transmission. The 3270 terminal buffer (at the device) could be updated on a single character basis, if necessary, because of the existence of a "set buffer address order" (SBA), that usually preceded any data to be written/overwritten within the buffer. A complete buffer could also be read or replaced using theREAD BUFFERcommand orWRITEcommand (unformatted or formatted in the case of the 3270).

Block-oriented terminals cause lesssystem loadon the host and less network traffic than character-oriented terminals. They also appear more responsive to the user, especially over slow connections, since editing within a field is done locally rather than depending onechoingfrom the host system.

Early terminals had limited editing capabilities – 3270 terminals, for example, only could check entries as valid numerics.Subsequent "smart" or "intelligent" terminals incorporated microprocessors and supported more local processing.

Programmers of block-oriented terminals often used the technique of storingcontextinformation for the transaction in progress on the screen, possibly in a hidden field, rather than depending on a running program to keep track of status. This was the precursor of theHTMLtechnique of storing context in theURLas data to be passed as arguments to aCGIprogram.

Unlike a character-oriented terminal, where typing a character into the last position of the screen usually causes the terminal to scroll down one line, entering data into the last screen position on a block-oriented terminal usually causes the cursor towrap— move to the start of the first enterable field. Programmers might "protect" the last screen position to prevent inadvertent wrap. Likewise a protected field following an enterable field might lock the keyboard and sound an audible alarm if the operator attempted to enter more data into the field than allowed.

Common block-oriented terminals

Hard-copy

• IBM 1050
• IBM 2740

Remote job entry

• IBM 2770
• IBM 2780
• IBM 3770
• IBM 3780

Display

• IBM 2260
• IBM 3270
• IBM 5250
• Burroughs CorporationTD-830
• AT&TDataspeed 40 (3270 clone manufactured byTeletype Corporation)
• TeleVideo912/920/925/950
• Tandem ComputersVT6530
• Hewlett-PackardVT2640
• UNIVACUniscopeseries
• Digital Equipment CorporationVT61, VT62
• Lear SieglerADM31(optional)
• HoneywellVIP 7700/7760
• ITT CorporationCourier line
• Bull Questar
• ICL 7500 series

Graphical terminals

A normally text-onlyVT100terminal with aVT640conversion board displaying graphics

Agraphical terminalcan display images as well as text. Graphical terminalsare divided intovector-modeterminals, andraster mode.

A vector-mode display directly draws lines on the face of acathode-ray tubeunder control of the host computer system. The lines are continuously formed, but since the speed of electronics is limited, the number of concurrent lines that can be displayed at one time is limited. Vector-mode displays were historically important but are no longer used. Practically all modern graphic displays are raster-mode, descended from the picture scanning techniques used fortelevision,in which the visual elements are a rectangular array ofpixels.Since the raster image is only perceptible to the human eye as a whole for a very short time, the raster must be refreshed many times per second to give the appearance of a persistent display. The electronic demands of refreshing display memory meant that graphic terminals were developed much later than text terminals, and initially cost much more.

Most terminals todayare graphical; that is, they can show images on the screen. The modern term for graphical terminal is "thin client".A thin client typically uses a protocol like X11 for Unix terminals, orRDPfor Microsoft Windows. The bandwidth needed depends on the protocol used, the resolution, and thecolor depth.

Modern graphic terminals allow display of images in color, and of text in varying sizes, colors, andfonts(type faces).

In the early 1990s, an industry consortium attempted to define a standard,AlphaWindows,that would allow a single CRT screen to implement multiple windows, each of which was to behave as a distinct terminal. Unfortunately, likeI2O,this suffered from being run as a closed standard: non-members were unable to obtain even minimal information and there was no realistic way a small company or independent developer could join the consortium.

Intelligent terminals

Anintelligent terminaldoes its own processing, usually implying a microprocessor is built in, but not all terminals with microprocessors did any real processing of input: the main computer to which it was attached would have to respond quickly to each keystroke. The term "intelligent" in this context dates from 1969.

Notable examples include theIBM 2250,predecessor to the IBM 3250 and IBM 5080, andIBM 2260,predecessor to theIBM 3270,introduced withSystem/360in 1964.

IBM 2250 Model 4, includinglight penand programmed function keyboard

Most terminals were connected tominicomputersormainframe computersand often had a green or amber screen. Typically terminals communicate with the computer via aserial portvia anull modemcable, often using anEIARS-232or RS-422 or RS-423 or a current loop serial interface. IBM systems typically communicated over aBus and Tagchannel, acoaxial cableusing a proprietary protocol, a communications link usingBinary Synchronous Communicationsor IBM'sSNAprotocol, but for many DEC, Data General andNCR(and so on) computers there were many visual display suppliers competing against the computer manufacturer for terminals to expand the systems. In fact, the instruction design for theIntel 8008was originally conceived at Computer Terminal Corporation as the processor for theDatapoint 2200.

From the introduction of theIBM 3270,and theDEC VT100(1978), the user and programmer could notice significant advantages in VDU technology improvements, yet not all programmers used the features of the new terminals (backward compatibilityin the VT100 and later TeleVideo terminals, for example, with "dumb terminals" allowed programmers to continue to use older software).

Some dumb terminals had been able to respond to a few escape sequences without needing microprocessors: they used multipleprinted circuit boardswith manyintegrated circuits;the single factor that classed a terminal as "intelligent" was its ability toprocessuser-input within the terminal—not interrupting the main computer at each keystroke—and send a block of data at a time (for example: when the user has finished a whole field or form). Most terminals in the early 1980s, such as ADM-3A, TVI912, Data General D2, DECVT52,despite the introduction of ANSI terminals in 1978, were essentially "dumb" terminals, although some of them (such as the later ADM and TVI models) did have a primitive block-send capability. Common early uses of local processing power included features that had little to do with off-loading data processing from thehost computerbut added useful features such as printing to a local printer, buffered serial data transmission and serial handshaking (to accommodate higher serial transfer speeds), and more sophisticated character attributes for the display, as well as the ability to switch emulation modes to mimic competitor's models, that became increasingly important selling features during the 1980s especially, when buyers could mix and match different suppliers' equipment to a greater extent than before.

The advance in microprocessors and lower memory costs made it possible for the terminal to handle editing operations such as inserting characters within a field that may have previously required a full screen-full of characters to be re-sent from the computer, possibly over a slow modem line. Around the mid-1980s most intelligent terminals, costing less than most dumb terminals would have a few years earlier, could provide enough user-friendly local editing of data and send the completed form to the main computer. Providing even more processing possibilities, workstations like the TeleVideo TS-800 could runCP/M-86,blurring the distinction between terminal and Personal Computer.

Another of the motivations for development of themicroprocessorwas to simplify and reduce the electronics required in a terminal. That also made it practicable to load several "personalities" into a single terminal, so a Qume QVT-102 could emulate many popular terminals of the day, and so be sold into organizations that did not wish to make any software changes. Frequently emulated terminal types included:

• Lear SieglerADM-3Aand later models
• TeleVideo910 to 950 (these models copied ADM3 codes and added several of their own, eventually being copied by Qume and others)
• Digital Equipment CorporationVT52andVT100
• Data GeneralD1 to D3 and especially D200 and D210
• Hazeltine CorporationH1500
• Tektronix4014
• WyseW50, W60 and W99

TheANSI X3.64escape code standard produced uniformity to some extent, but significant differences remained. For example, theVT100,HeathkitH19 in ANSI mode, Televideo 970, Data General D460, andQumeQVT-108 terminals all followed the ANSI standard, yet differences might exist in codes fromfunction keys,what character attributes were available, block-sending of fields within forms, "foreign" character facilities, and handling of printers connected to the back of the screen.

In the 21st century, the termIntelligent Terminalcan now refer to a retailPoint of Salecomputer.

Contemporary

While earlyIBM PCshad single-colorgreen screens,these screens were not terminals. Thescreenof a PC did not contain any character generation hardware; all video signals and video formatting were generated by thevideo display cardin the PC, or (in most graphics modes) by the CPU and software. An IBM PC monitor, whether it was the green monochrome display or the 16-color display, was technically much more similar to an analogTV set(without a tuner) than to a terminal. With suitablesoftwarea PC could, however, emulate a terminal, and in that capacity it could be connected to a mainframe or minicomputer. TheData General/Onecould be booted into terminal emulator mode from its ROM. Eventually microprocessor-based personal computers greatly reduced the market demand for conventional terminals.

In the 1990s especially, "thin clients" andX terminalshave combined economical local processing power with central, shared computer facilities to retain some of the advantages of terminals over personal computers:

Today, most PCtelnetclients provide emulation of the most common terminal,the DEC VT100, using theANSI escape codestandard X3.64, or could run as X terminals using software such asCygwin/XunderMicrosoft WindowsorX.Org Serversoftware under Linux.

Since the advent and subsequent popularization of thepersonal computer,few genuine hardware terminals are used to interface with computers today. Using themonitorandkeyboard,modern operating systems likeLinuxand theBSDderivatives featurevirtual consoles,which are mostly independent from the hardware used.

When using agraphical user interface(or GUI) like theX Window System,one's display is typically occupied by a collection of windows associated with various applications, rather than a single stream of text associated with a single process. In this case, one may use a terminal emulator application within the windowing environment. This arrangement permits terminal-like interaction with the computer (for running acommand-line interpreter,for example) without the need for a physical terminal device; it can even run multiple terminal emulators on the same device.

System console

Knoppix system console showing the boot process

One meaning ofsystem console,computer console,root console,operator's console,or simplyconsoleis the text entry and display device for system administration messages, particularly those from theBIOSorboot loader,thekernel,from theinitsystem and from thesystem logger.It is a physical device consisting of a keyboard and a printer or screen, and traditionally is atext terminal,but may also be agraphical terminal.

Another, older, meaning of system console, computer console,hardware console,operator's console or simply console is a hardware component used by anoperatorto control the hardware, typically some combination offront panel,keyboard/printer and keyboard/display.

History

IBM 1620console, with a typewriter and front panel

Prior to the development of alphanumericCRTsystem consoles, some computers such as theIBM 1620had console typewriters andfront panelswhile the very first electronicstored-program computer,theManchester Baby,used a combination of electromechanical switches and a CRT to provide console functions—the CRT displaying memory contents in binary by mirroring the machine'sWilliams-Kilburn tubeCRT-based RAM.

Some early operating systems supported either a single keyboard/print or keyboard/display device for controlling the OS. Some also supported a single alternate console, and some supported ahardcopyconsole for retaining a record of commands, responses and other console messages. However, in the late 1960s it became common for operating systems to support many more consoles than 3, and operating systems began appearing in which the console was simply any terminal with a privileged user logged on.

On earlyminicomputers,the console was aserial console,anRS-232serial link to a terminal such as aASR-33or, later, a terminal fromDigital Equipment Corporation(DEC), e.g.,DECWriter,VT100.This terminal was usually kept in a secured room since it could be used for certain privileged functions such as halting the system or selecting which media to boot from. Largemidrange systems,e.g. those fromSun Microsystems,Hewlett-PackardandIBM,still use serial consoles. In larger installations, the console ports are attached to multiplexers or network-connected multiport serial servers that let an operator connect a terminal to any of the attached servers. Today, serial consoles are often used for accessingheadless systems,usually with aterminal emulatorrunning on alaptop.Also, routers, enterprisenetwork switchesand other telecommunication equipment have RS-232 serial console ports.

OnPCsandworkstations,the computer's attachedkeyboardandmonitorhave the equivalent function. Since the monitor cable carries video signals, it cannot be extended very far. Often, installations with many servers therefore use keyboard/video multiplexers (KVM switches) and possibly video amplifiers to centralize console access. In recent years,KVM/IPdevices have become available that allow a remote computer to view the video output and send keyboard input via any TCP/IP network and therefore theInternet.

Some PCBIOSes,especially in servers, also support serial consoles, giving access to the BIOS through a serial port so that the simpler and cheaper serial console infrastructure can be used. Even where BIOS support is lacking, someoperating systems,e.g.FreeBSDandLinux,can be configured for serial console operation either during bootup, or after startup.

Starting with theIBM 9672,IBM large systems have used aHardware Management Console(HMC), consisting of a PC and a specialized application, instead of a 3270 or serial link. Other IBM product lines also use an HMC, e.g.,System p.

It is usually possible tolog infrom the console. Depending on configuration, the operating system may treat a login session from the console as being more trustworthy than a login session from other sources.

Emulation

Main article:Terminal emulator

A terminal emulator is a piece of software that emulates a text terminal. In the past, before the widespread use oflocal area networksand broadband internet access, many computers would use a serial access program to communicate with other computers viatelephone lineor serial device.

When the firstMacintoshwas released, a program calledMacTerminalwas used to communicate with many computers, including theIBM PC.

TheWin32 consoleon Windows does not emulate a physical terminal that supports escape sequencesso SSH and Telnet programs (for logging in textually to remote computers) for Windows, including the Telnet program bundled with some versions of Windows, often incorporate their own code to process escape sequences.

The terminal emulators on mostUnix-likesystems—such as, for example,gnome-terminal,Konsole,QTerminal,xterm,andTerminal.app—do emulate physical terminals including support for escape sequences; e.g., xterm can emulate theVT220andTektronix 4010hardware terminals.

Modes

Terminals can operate in various modes, relating to when they send input typed by the user on the keyboard to the receiving system (whatever that may be):

• Character mode (a.k.a.character-at-a-time mode): In this mode, typed input is unbuffered and sent immediately to the receiving system.
• Line mode (a.k.a.line-at-a-time mode): In this mode, the terminal is buffered, provides a local line editing function, and sends an entire input line, after it has been locally edited, when the user presses an, e.g.,↵ Enter,EOB,key.A so-called "line mode terminal" operates solely in this mode.
• Block mode (a.k.a.screen-at-a-time mode): In this mode (also calledblock-oriented), the terminal is buffered and provides a local full-screen data function. The user can enter input into multiple fields in a form on the screen (defined to the terminal by the receiving system), moving the cursor around the screen using keys such asTab ↹and thearrow keysand performing editing functions locally usinginsert,delete,← Backspaceand so forth. The terminal sends only the completed form, consisting of all the data entered on the screen, to the receiving system when the user presses an↵ Enterkey.

There is a distinction between thereturnand the↵ Enterkeys. In some multiple-mode terminals, that can switch between modes, pressing the↵ Enterkey whennotin block mode does not do the same thing as pressing thereturnkey. Whilst thereturnkey will cause an input line to be sent to the host in line-at-a-time mode, the↵ Enterkey will rather cause the terminal to transmit the contents of the character row where the cursor is currently positioned to the host, host-issued prompts and all.Some block-mode terminals have both an↵ Enterand local cursor moving keys such asReturnandNew Line.

Different computeroperating systemsrequire different degrees of mode support when terminals are used as computer terminals. ThePOSIX terminal interface,as provided by Unix and POSIX-compliant operating systems, does not accommodate block-mode terminals at all, and only rarely requires the terminalitselfto be in line-at-a-time mode, since the operating system is required to providecanonical input mode,where the terminal device driver in the operating systememulateslocal echo in the terminal, and performs line editing functions at the host end. Most usually, and especially so that the host system can supportnon-canonical input mode,terminals for POSIX-compliant systems are always in character-at-a-time mode. In contrast, IBM 3270 terminals connected toMVSsystems are always required to be in block mode.

See also

• Blit (computer terminal)
• Data terminal equipment
• IBM 3101
• Micro-Term ERGO-201
• Minitel
• Text user interface
• TV Typewriter
• Videotex
• Virtual console (PC)
• Communication endpoint
• End system
• Node (networking)
• Terminal capabilities
• Terminal emulator
• Visual editor
• VT05

References

• Bangia, Ramesh (2010). "line mode terminal".Dictionary of Information Technology.Laxmi Publications, Ltd.ISBN978-93-8029-815-3.
• Bolthouse, David (1996).Exploring IBM client/server computing.Business Perspective Series. Maximum Press.ISBN978-1-885068-04-0.
• Burgess, Ross (1988).UNIX systems for microcomputers.Professional and industrial computing series. BSP Professional Books.ISBN978-0-632-02036-2.
• Diercks, Jon (2002).MPE/iX system administration handbook.Hewlett-Packard professional books. Prentice Hall PTR.ISBN978-0-13-030540-4.
• Gofton, Peter W. (1991).Mastering UNIX serial communications.Sybex.ISBN978-0-89588-708-5.
• Raymond, Eric S.(2004).The art of Unix programming.Addison-Wesley professional computing series. Addison-Wesley.ISBN978-0-13-142901-7.
• Rodgers, Ulka (1990).UNIX database management systems.Yourdon Press computing series. Yourdon Press.ISBN978-0-13-945593-3.
• Topham, Douglas W. (1990).A system V guide to UNIX and XENIX.Springer-Verlag.ISBN978-0-387-97021-9.

External links

• The Terminals Wiki,an encyclopedia of computer terminals.
• Text Terminal HOWTOfrom tldp.org
• The TTY demystifiedfrom linussakesson.net
• Video Terminal Informationat theWayback Machine(archived May 23, 2010)
• Directive 1999/5/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 1999 on radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity (R&TTE Directive)
• List of Computer Terminalsfrom epocalc.net
• VTTEST – VT100/VT220/XTerm test utility– A terminal test utility by Thomas E. Dickey