Many things

[Tony Duell]

> I wonder what percentage of classic systems insists on real terminals vs. 
> terminal emulation.

I've found so many bugs in certain so-called 'VT100 Emulators' (not 
running on any of my machines, I hasten to add!) that I feel the only 
thing I can actually trust to work on a PDP11 or VAX is a real DEC 
terminal. At least I like to have them around to determine if 
mis-formatted output is due to problems on the DEC side or yet another 
bug on the PC side...

That said, I do find terminal emulators useful. I use my HP95LX Palmtop 
as a 'pocket terminal' when sorting out a minicomputer. It's easier to 
stick that on top of the CPU cards than find somewhere to balance a VT52 
:-) . I like ot have some kind of terminal emulator, even just a dumb 
teletype one, on every machine with a keyboard, display, and RS232 port. 

-tony