[SunRescue] Dumb Term

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

woods at weird.com writes:

>They're all dumb!  By definition -- they don't "boot", i.e. load their
>code from some medium such as the network.  The term came about when
>"smart" terminals, eg. X11 and some of its early competitors, began
>arriving on the scene.  Before that the distinction was between a tty
>and a glass tty.  :-)

I've understood the distinction, classically, to be between "dumb" glass
ttys that had no cursor control, and "smart" video terminals that
could move the cursor anywhere and do full-screen kinda stuff.

The only "dumb" terminal by that definition I've ever used (aside from
hardcopy terminals) was a teleray, though storage-tube displays make
for "dumb" terminals when used for text, in a way...

I do think that the "dumb/smart" definition is like the "workstation"
or "supercomputer" definition - it is context sensitive, and changes
with the technology. In these crazy days of X terminals and diskless
workstations, I would consider a vt220 to be a "dumb" terminal. (And
you can pry it from my cold dead fingers, etc., etc.)

-- david fischer -- dave at cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --