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<H2><A NAME="s21">21.</A> <A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO.html#toc21">Appendix A: General</A></H2>
<H2><A NAME="ss21.1">21.1</A> <A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO.html#toc21.1">List of Linux Terminal Commands</A>
</H2>
<H3>Sending a command to the terminal</H3>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-17.html#setterm_">setterm</A>: long options</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-17.html#tput">tput</A>: terse options</LI>
<LI> reset: initializes only</LI>
<LI> tset: same as reset</LI>
<LI> clear: clears screen</LI>
<LI> setterm -reset: sends reset string</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H3>Configuring the terminal device driver</H3>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-15.html#set_serial">Setserial</A>:</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-15.html#stty_">Stty</A></LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H3>Terminfo</H3>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-16.html#tic">Terminfo Compiler (tic)</A> terminfo compiler
&amp; translator</LI>
<LI> toe: shows list of terminals for which you have terminfo
files</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-16.html#infocmp">infocmp</A> compares or displays terminfo
entries</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H3>Other</H3>
<P>
<UL>
<LI> gitkeys: shows what bytes each key sends to the host.</LI>
<LI> tty: shows what tty port you are connected to.</LI>
<LI> reset -q: shows the value of TERM, the terminfo entry name</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-16.html#reset_">reset</A>: sets TERM interactively and initializes</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss21.2">21.2</A> <A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO.html#toc21.2">The Internet and Books</A>
</H2>
<H3><A NAME="internet_"></A> Terminal Info on the Internet </H3>
<P> In the first decade of the 20th century,
http://www.cs.utk.edu/&nbsp;shuford/terminal_index.html was Shuford's Website
at the University of Tennessee. It was the major sit for information
about text terminals but is now (2013) defunct. Perhaps one can find it
archived on the "Wayback" machine.
http://www.cs.utk.edu/&nbsp;shuford/terminal/repair_hints_news.txt was
Shuford's repair archive of newsgroup postings on terminal repair. See
below for the vt100 part of this website which is still on the internet.</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.vt100.net">vt100 section of Shuford's Website</A> </LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_terminal">Text-terminal - Wikipedia</A></LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX_terminal_interface">Terminal Interface per Wikipedia</A> </LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="www.gnu.org/manual/glibc/html_chapter/libc_12.html">Low-Level Terminal Interface</A> part of "GNU C Library Reference
Manual" (in libc (or glibc) docs package). It covers the detailed
meaning of "stty" commands, etc.</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.boundless.com/terminals.html">Boundless</A> purchased the VT and Dorio terminal business from
DEC. Boundless used to have online Specs of their ADDS, VT, and
DORIO terminals but that link (in previous versions of this HOWTO) is
now dead. </LI>
<LI> Wyse had detailed info (such as escape sequences) in it's
knowledge base. It's not as complete as a real manual since it mainly
cover "native" personality. It was Wyse text-terminals database" at
http://www.wyse.com/service/support/kbase/wyseterm.aspi but it's defunct.
You may still access their knowledge base (does it still cover
text-terminals) by registering. Start at
<A HREF="www.wyse.com">www.wyse.com</A>.</LI>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://dickey.his.com/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html">ncurses FAQ</A> </LI>
<LI> comp.terminals is the newsgroup for
terminals </LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H3>Books related to terminals</H3>
<P>
<UL>
<LI> EIA-232 serial port see
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-23.html#RS232_books">EIA-232 (RS-232) Books</A>.</LI>
<LI> Repair see
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-20.html#repair_info">Repair Books &amp; Websites</A>.</LI>
<LI> Terminfo database see
<A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO-16.html#termcap_docs">Termcap Documents</A></LI>
</UL>
</P>
<H3>Entire books on terminals</H3>
<P> As far as I know, there is no satisfactory book on text terminals
Although this HOWTO has been published as a book, I don't suggest that
that you buy it if you have access to the online version which I'm
improving on every few months or so. The following are mainly of
historical interest:</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI> Handbook of Interactive Computer Terminals by Duane E. Sharp;
Reston Publishing Co. 1977. (mostly obsolete)</LI>
<LI> Communicating with Display Terminals by Roger K. deBry;
McGraw-Hill 1985. (mostly on IBM synchronous terminals)</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<P>The "HANDBOOK ... " presents brief specifications of over 100 different
models of antique terminals made in the early 1970's by over 60
different companies. It also explains how they work physically but
has a diagram for a CRT which erroneously shows electrostatic
deflection of the electron beam (p. 36). Terminals actually used
magnetic deflection (even in the 1970's). This book explains a number
of advanced technical concepts such as "random scan" and "color
penetration principle".</P>
<P>The "COMMUNICATING ... " book in contrast to the "Handbook ... " ignores
the physical and electronic details of terminals. It has an entire
chapter explaining binary numbers (which is not needed in a book on
terminals since this information is widely available elsewhere). It
seems to mostly cover old IBM terminals (mainly the 3270) in block and
synchronous modes of operation. It's of little use for the commonly
used ANSI terminals used today on Unix-like systems. Although it does
discuss them a little it doesn't show the various wiring schemes used
to connect them to serial ports.</P>
<H3>Books with chapters on terminals</H3>
<P> These chapters cover almost nothing about the terminals themselves
and their capabilities. Rather, these chapters are mostly about how
to set up the computer (and its terminal driver) to work with
terminals. Due to the differences of different Unix-like systems,
much of the information does not not apply to Linux.</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI> Unix Power Tools by Jerry Peck et. al. O'Reilly 1998.
Ch. 5 Setting Up Your Terminal, Ch. 41: Terminal and Serial Line
Settings, Ch. 42: Problems With Terminals</LI>
<LI> Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment by W. Richard Stevens
Addison-Wesley, 1993. Ch. 11: Terminal I/O, Ch. 19: Pseudo Terminals</LI>
<LI> Essential System Administration by Aleen Frisch, 2nd ed.
O'Reilly, 1998. Ch. 11: Terminals and Modems.</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<P>The "UNIX POWER TOOLS" book has 3 short chapters on text terminals.
It covers less ground than this HOWTO but gives more examples to help
you.</P>
<P>The "ADVANCED PROGRAMMING ... " Chapter 11 covers only the device driver
included in the operating system to deal with terminals. It explains
the parameters one gives to the stty command to configure the
terminal.</P>
<P>The "ESSENTIAL SYSTEM ..." book's chapter has more about terminals
than modems. It seems well written.</P>
<H2><A NAME="non_linux"></A> <A NAME="ss21.3">21.3</A> <A HREF="Text-Terminal-HOWTO.html#toc21.3">Non-Linux OSs </A>
</H2>
<P>Under Microsoft's DOS one may use the DOS command "ctty COM2" so
that the DOS command line will display on a serial terminal (on COM2
in this example). Unfortunately one can then no longer
use the computer monitor since MS DOS is not a multiuser operating
system. Nor can more than one terminal be used. So this capability
is of little (if any) benefit. If you emulate DOS under Linux with
the free dosemu, it's reported that you can run several terminals
(multiuser). But it's reported that PCTerm emulation doesn't work
with it (yet ??).</P>
<P>While MS didn't create a "multiuser DOS" OS, others did. This permits
the use of many terminals on one DOS PC. It's compatible with most
MS-DOS software. One multiuser DOS OS is named "REAL/32". The
terminal's "pcterm" emulation is used here. There also may be a
"scan" (scancodes) setup mode which needs to be set. Other OSs such
as PICK, PC-MOS, and Concurrent DOS were/are multiuser and support
terminals.</P>
<P>There are 3 programs for Linux which let you run Windows applications
on a Linux PC: free: Wine, non-free: VMware and NeTraverse. Can they
use text-terminals under DOS? Wine can't since it doesn't have a DOS
mode. The other two require you to run the MS Windows OS software as
a "guest OS". The guest MS Windows OS has a DOS mode but it's not of
much use for text-terminals since it's not multiuser.</P>
<P>For other unix-like OSs, the configuration of the host computer for
terminals is usually significantly different than for Linux. Here are
some links to on-line manuals for non-linux systems.</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://docsrv.sco.com:507/en/HANDBOOK/serial_terminal_adding.html">Adding Serial Terminals</A> in SCO OpenServer Handbook.</LI>
<LI> Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX
<A HREF="http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-90675/ch03.html">Configuring Terminals and Modems</A></LI>
</UL>
</P>
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