[geeks] Small serial terminal

[vance at neurotica.com]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Bill Bradford wrote:

> Okay.  I'm looking for something along the lines of "smallest possible
> AC and/or battery-powered VT100 compatible serial terminal".
>
> Having a P3 laptop as a serial terminal is overkill, having a Televideo
> 950 is overkill size and power-wise.
>
> I've got a Jornada PocketPC at work, but the screen and keyboard is too
> small (has to scroll to do 80x25).
>
> I'd like to avoid using a laptop for this purpose, unless its something
> small that I can boot off a floppy (and not have to power the HD).
>
> I saw a small dedicated serial terminal on eBay once; had all the comm
> functionality in ROM and had no removable media... but I forgot the name
> of it after I lost the auction.
>
> Saw some plasma/LCD (orange! woo!) VT320-compatible units on the net
> once too, but they were above my price range.
>
> Suggestions?  I need one of the below:
>
> a.  flat-panel or similar, uses normal LKxxx keyboard or PS2 keyboard,
>     AC power, for use at home in space-limited situations.  VT100 or
>     better emulation.

How about a VT525 with a flatpanel monitor and an IBM Model M?

> b.  Portable.  Needs to have decent usable keyboard and screen that
>     handles 80x25 display, with 9600 8N1 serial.  VT100 or better
>     emulation.

An IBM Workpad z50.  It's a HPC Palmtop based on a MIPS/NEC VR4121
@133MHz.  Has WindowsCE in ROM, but you can boot NetBSD off a
CompactFlash.

Peace...  Sridhar