5420 follies - sure this thing is vt100-compatible!!!

[59577]

I'm typing this from a 5420, with the original, finger-bruising
keyboard (they've improved it twice since it first came out.)

You really need the  "General Technical Reference" to do
anything useful; the "User's Guide" is really the
"Non-Programmer's Guide".  The back of the GTR says "For more
information, call 800-323-1229", and the people on the other end
are fairly helpful.

The 5420 is not "VT-100 Compatible", it's "ANSI 3.64".  They're
similar, but not identical.  There will soon be a
much-more-VT100-compatible version for about the same price,
probably called a 5425.  Aside from repairs to some bad design
choices, one of the major differences will be VT-100 line
graphics instead of the TTY-4424 line graphics it now has.

(Another possible explanation is that you don't have s standard
5420;  there is a prom set out for EPIC that makes the terminal
emulate a getset.  If you can get to the terminal options menu
described in the User's Guide, you don't have to worry about
this.)

Here is an algorithm for obtaining the "Set Options" sequences
from the User's Guide:
	The escape sequence is ESC [ ps;ps j
	Where the first ps is the option number and the second
	is its value.  ASCII characters, if any, follow the
	terminating j.

	To get the option number, turn to page 43 of the User's
	Guide.  Number the options on the following 5 pages, in
	order (Speed=1, Duplex=2 ......Alarm=30)
	To get the option value, look at the "Selections"  list.
	The *-ed option, which is the default, has value 0.
	Read down the list, cylclicly, and number the values
	0,1,... .  Thus, for speed, you have:

		110	5
		300	6
		1200*	0
		2400	1
		4800	2
		9600	3
		19200	4
	(This algorithm doesn't apply to setting the RETURN-key
	value.)

-- 
The virtual keyboard of:
				Bill Stewart
				AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
				...!ihnp4!ho95b!wcs