When s-100 machines came out, they were standalone. The serial port was for sending serial data not for a terminal. You would have to write some software to use it with a terminal.
Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 30, 2023, at 14:45, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > On Wed, 30 Aug 2023, William Sudbrink via cctalk wrote: >> There were RF modulators. See the November 1976 review of the Poly-88 here >> (on page 16): >> http://cini.classiccmp.org/pdf/DrDobbs/DrDobbs-1976-11-12-v1n10.pdf >> Note the reference to the "Pixie Verter". It is a little cheap circuit >> board that takes the composite signal and modulates it onto channel 3. You >> will find references to the Pixie-Verter in a number of publications and >> user manuals for early video boards. The Matrox and the Cromemco Dazzler >> and the Ohio Scientific documentation all reference it. David Ahl in his >> "Saga Of A System" magazine article references it. With that, a TV, video >> board, RF modulator and a parallel keyboard were much cheaper than any >> serial terminal back then. The RF modulator was separate from the video >> board (usually hung on the back of the TV) for noise reasons. > > In the circles that I was in, the Sup-R-ModII seemed to be the most common. > Oddly, it was on UHF channel 34, although there were plenty of channel 3/4 > ones. Tuning the TV to channel 34 wasn't all that hard, because it was right > below a third tier channel and a 24/7 [speed-freak?] preacher dude, that > provided easy landmarks in the spectrum. > > Since the RF modulator needed a power supply, and it was easy to bring power > out from the computer, whereas the 'rents wouldn't let you modify the family > Philco, amongst my associates, it tended to be located at the computer. > > Both the AppleII, and the IBM CGA (even including most of its clones) had a 4 > pin Berg (one pin usually missing as a key) to power and run the RF modulator. > > Terminals were cool if you had one, but cost more. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com >
