I run NetBSD on hardware that won't run much of anything else, these days, or for which I lack a means of conjuring the necessary PAKs, and I run OpenBSD on anything exposed to the net, or to public WiFi networks. Not sure why I don't run FreeBSD on anything. ZFS would be nice. I suppose one or more of the particularly self-destructive aspects of my mind worries that FreeBSD experience might somehow eventually lead to gainful employment, and we can't have that.

@frobozz

#ZFS is nice. I've had it, with full root-on-ZFS, since PC-BSD. It took me several years to actually realize how nice it was.

If you want something more arcane than #FreeBSD to play with, take a look at #Illumos, in particular its derivatives #OpenSolaris, #OmniOS, #SmartOS, and @ptribble 's #Tribblix.

Illumos has original Joy+Horton #vi (not one of the clones), the SMF, zones, ZFS, and a fair number of System 5isms not in the BSD world (e.g. sar, which @rl_dane was talking about the other day).

@JdeBP @frobozz @ptribble

Duuude, are you going to make me install Illumos so I can try out "true" vi? 😆

@gumnos, you seein' this? Folks keep pulling me deeper into the neckbeard side of the world. XD

usr/src/cmd/vi/port/ex_vis.h - illumos-gate - Gitiles

@JdeBP @rl_dane @gumnos I think I missed the window to get an affordable dead tree tty. I'll have to make-do with my green Wyse WY-60 with a serial Okidata Microline 320.

@frobozz @JdeBP @gumnos

Oh man, I'm jelly! I missed my window to pick up as many WYSE terminals I could stuff in my car 25 years ago. XD

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Back in the college computer labs, Wyse was the best, followed by DEC, with adm3a at the bottom. Looks-wise, the order is reversed.

@passthejoe @frobozz @JdeBP @gumnos

I dunno, I have a vague impression of the #WYSE terminals being "weird," but it's been a quarter century.

Some of the later DEC VTs were dinky, but that #VT100 was LEGEND-STATUS classic. 😄

I literally remember seeing them in pictures and wondering "What is that groovy curved-looking computer??" and only years later learning that that was the ORIGINAL VT100.

I'd lose my mind to be able to play with one of those sweet machines.

I always had in the back of my mind that if I came across a terminal, I'd wire up a computer (Raspberry Pi, Open SIMH) with a serial port to use it. ... The terminal hasn't fallen into my lap, so it remains a what-if

CC: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
@rl_dane @passthejoe @JdeBP @gumnos An unstable consensus reinterpretation of the VT100's behavior was pretty much the de facto emulation standard for about two decades, both in terminal emulation software and in compatibility modes on other terminals. I'm told that the actual VT100 isn't quite VT100-compatible. Never used one, personally, just various ADDS and Wyse models, along with tip, cu, minicom, and in the distant past, Procomm on PCs.

@frobozz

I'd like to get my hands on a VT525 one day, to see how badly modern TUI softwares work with one.

Of course, that sort of curiosity doesn't justify the expense and risk.

That thing about the VT100, by the way, is likely what Thomas Dickey (and others) have been pointing out for donkeys's years. VT1xxs didn't do colour; and people weren't imitating/expecting the VT102, let alone the VT100. They were imitating/expecting AIXterm.

@rl_dane @passthejoe @gumnos

#DECVTs #DECVT525 #ComupterTerminals