Date   : Sun, 22 Nov 1987 21:04:03 GMT
From   : ciaraldi@cs.rochester.edu (Mike Ciaraldi)
Subject: DEC VT180 "Robin" Questions

I'm a long-time CP/M hacker, so I was called in recently to
help set up a DEC VT180 that had been donated to a local 
non-profit group.

The VT180 (also known as the "Robin") is basically a VT100 terminal
with a built-in Z80 board and external floppies that runs CP/M.
The donated one came with CP/M, a word processing program, and
a spreadsheet.  There was also a Users Guide and troubleshooting manual.

The main use would be as a terminal to a mainframe data base system.
It would also be hooked to a videodisk system so that video frames
could be called up under control of the mainframe (they already had this
working with a VT102 terminal).

We tried using the VT180 first as just a VT100 terminal.
This worked fine at 9600 baud, with one problem.
The setup screen lets you set the baud rate, parity, etc.,
for the communications port, but has nowhere to set them for
the printer port.  The manual doesn't say anything on this.

Question #1:  When used as a terminal, how do you set the
parameters of the printer port?

The mainframe software we were using sends the standard VT100
code sequence to cause messages to go out to the printer.
This works on our real VT102, but on the VT180 the messages
show on the video screen instead.  The manual doesn't list the control
codes obeyed by the VT180.

Question #2:  When used as a terminal, does the VT180 allow sending
messages to the printer?  How about doing a screen dump or printer
echo? (these use the shifted ENTER key on a VT102).

So, we tried CP/M.  This has a utility for setting the port parameters.
I got a copy of Kermit version 4.05
by downloading to an IBM PC and using Media Master to make
a VT180-compatible floppy.  Kermit worked OK, passing the
control codes on to the built-in terminal.  But it still
wouldn't send things to the printer under program control.  And we lose a few
characters after every Form Feed, presumably because it takes
so long to clear the screen.  I was able to send things to the printer
with the standard CP/M  Control-P key.

Question #3:  Is there any way to avoid losing characters
under Kermit+CP/M?  Any way to use the printer?

Question #4:  Is there some better communications program
for the VT180, which might solve some of these problems?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mike Ciaraldi
University of Rochester
Computer Science Dept.
uucp:   seismo!rochester!ciaraldi
aroa:   ciaraldi@cs.rochester.edu