Re: Case Insensitive File Systems -- Torvalds Hates Them

On 03/06/2025 16:57, Rich wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 03/06/2025 12:49, Rich wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 03/06/2025 10:31, Nuno Silva wrote:

For terminals (the hardware devices, it seems we may need to get another
word for terminals, as it might otherwise be seen as nitpicking...),
another issue is likely to be that, even if it somehow can support utf8,
it might be limited in how much glyphs it can support at once. (I mean,
not by an incomplete font, but because it has a limit in how much glyphs
any font can have.)
>

Are any terminals still being made?

>
Actual commercial ones -- doubtful.  Unless there is some esoteric
maker supplying all the banks running COBOL mainframes with 3250
clones.
>

Wasnt the whole point of the IBM PC to be able to do a 3270 etc at lower
cost ?

 That was one of the reasons IIRC.
 

I mean if I wanted to do the VT220 or wyse 50 thing I'd get a raspberry
PI and a LCD monitor and run linux on it and build one out of software.

>
And further blurring the line between what is a hardware terminal vs. a
virtual terminal.
'

Well exactly. 'Glass teletypes' versus 'smart terminals' become 'PCs'...
>
Names of things are only metadata ponting  to the 'thing in itself'.
>
So many arguments arise from people confusing descriptions with the
things they describe.

 Indeed.
 

Last time I saw a dedicated terminal in a bank, hooked up to some remote
mainframe, it was a PC running some custom code, anyway.

>
This has been the way for a very long time.  The actual single function
"terminal" hardware is not likely a very sellable item anymore.
>

Probly would be if someone made an LCD style Wyse 50 or VT220

 In today's world that is much more likely to be a "tablet"
(ipad/android) running an app, maybe with a bluetooth keyboard vs a
full on terminal of the bygone era.
 

There'll be terminals with at least some graphical capability, but
that's only usable if it's fast enough.
>
I think mine supports changing fonts, but unless the customization is
done with a cartridge(?) on the back side, I suspect loading the
customization will not be very fast.

>
It really is simply too obsolete for me.
>
I replaced serial terminals with a plasma screen laptop running DOS back
in the 90s sometime...
>
Or winodows3  equipped with a emulator or telnet client

>
In my case, never had one.  "Terminal" access to whatever needed to see
a "terminal" on my end was always via a general purpose computer
running a software terminal emulator.  Originally Qmodem and a dialup
modem to access the college computers, later Linux and Minicom or
telnet or ssh.

>
You don't go back far enough...:-)

 Nope.  I'm about 20-25 years fewer total here than you.  The only times
I ever used actual TTY hardware terminals was in the CS labs at college
(until I learned the modem dialin number and avoided the commute to use
the uni. computer).
 

Many a job was sat in front of a VT200 or wyse 50 connected via a serial
line to a PDP or VAX or even a SCO Unix box.

 Did not get to enjoy that particular usage myself.
 

The cost of a SCO UNIX on a 386  with a multiport serial card and 50
Wyse terminals was unbelievably low.

 Which was why they were deployed so widely.  This was of course before
the cost of "PCs" dropped to the point that it became cheaper to
'emulate' on a PC instead.

That in fact never happened.
IIRC a Wyse 50 was less than a hundred quid when PCS were never less that £200 and still are not even without screens.Well a Pi maybe.
The serial  cards were a bit pricey and that why people ultimately chucked them out for an ethernet card and  a switch.
In reality many many companies I dealt with would have been far more profitable and efficient running restricted apps over serial consoles than putting PCs on the desktops.
You cant fiddle with and break a serial CRT terminal easily
--
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV