What Is VT100?
It's said that the VT100 was born at a time of great technological upheaval. This was not just any time in history, mind you. It was a time when people were still getting used to computers being useful devices and not just glorified calculators. This was a time when the only way to interact with one was by literally feeding it punch cards, and even then, there was no guarantee that your problem would be solved or that you wouldn't have to wait days for your results. All that changed when the VT100 came along. The VT series of terminals were among the first to fully support ANSI escape codes and other special features like those controlling the various LED lamps on their keyboards. This enabled them to be used as full-fledged computers instead of just simple calculators, which led to their rapid uptake and popularity and eventually made them de facto standards for terminal emulation software. The VT100 was the first terminal in DEC's VT terminal line that gained popularity, starting from its introduction in 1978. The terminal communicated efficiently with its host computer system through serial lines using the ANSI character set and its control sequences. The VT100 did many things at first. As before, it was among the first to use ANSI as a standard for character input; it was also the first terminal to use "graphic renditions" for things like blinking, bolding and underlining, and reverse video on par with 80 or 132-column displays. It was the first of DEC's terminals based on an industry-standard microprocessor, the Intel 8080. It, therefore, became the platform upon which DEC would construct other products. When you look at today's most popular terminals, the IBM 5250 and IBM 3270, you can see that they are direct descendants of this first model introduced by DEC over 30 years ago.
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