Show threadJdeBPJul 11, 2025

If you've ever wondered why I and others strive for efficient TUIs, crank up a 9600 BPS serial terminal connection and compare VIM and NeoVIM, both in 16 colour mode, drawing their initial empty document screens on a 230 by 50 size terminal.

VIM emits roughly 12KiB of characters over the wire, with a SPC for each erased character position. NeoVIM emits just over 1KiB of characters, using EL to erase each line after the initial tilde.

It takes VIM ~12 seconds to draw its initial screen, and NeoVIM ~1 second.

#SSH #RealTerminals #SerialPorts #LocalTerminals #NullModen

JdeBPJul 11, 2025

I have become very accustomed to SSH, it transpires. So much so that I was tweaking the network configuration of a system yesterday and worried that I might cut off my login session.

Then I remembered that there were *two* wires going over to the machine. I had connected up the null modem cable and configured a serial port login service at one end and my terminal emulator at the other.

Let's use that, then!

No amount of /etc/network/interfaces mucking about will break a null modem connection.

I think that I haven't remotely administered a system via a null modem local terminal this century, it is that long ago since I last did it. It has all been either SSH or some heavyweight #KVM/#ILO system.

#SSH #RealTerminals #SerialPorts #LocalTerminals #NullModem