Terminal emulator: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:37, 7 February 2024

Revision as of 07:44, 9 February 2024

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{{Excerpt|Computer_terminal|Character-oriented terminal}}

== Emulators: From Hardware to Software ==

When personal computers became ubiquitous in the 1980s, they offered the option of running software on the user's personal computer, providing an opportunity to replace the expensive and space consuming hardware terminals with something that had additional functions<ref>[{{cite web |url=https://www.emtec.com/zoc/terminal-emulator.html |title=Emulating a Terminal on Personal Computers]}}</ref>. Immediately software became available, that could emulate the functions of the hardware terminals on a PC. Examples of such software for [[DOS]] were [[Telix]] or Telemate, which was published in 1988 and could emulate a DEC VT102 terminal .<ref>[{{cite web |url=http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Telemate |title=Telemate Wiki]}}</ref>.

As prices of memory and computation fell, the local computing power increased, making the terminals themselves more powerful. In this process, initially, emulation of the functions of a terminal was a process that played out between terminal manufacturers, where the manufacturers of one type of terminal emulated the functions of another manufacturer. For example a Wyse-60 terminal offered a total of 15 so called "Personalities", among them those of competitors like [[Televideo]]-925, [[Digital_Equipment_Corporation|DEC]] [[VT100]] and [[IBM 3101]].<ref>[http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/wyse/WY-60/Wyse_WY60_Users_Guide.pdf Wyse 60 User's Guide, page 2-5]</ref>

[[Workstation]]s, usually running versions of [[Unix]], also became common in the 1980s. Unix systems usually provided access to the [[command line]] with locally-attached or dial-up terminals. Unix workstations were designed to be used primarily through a [[graphical user interface]] (GUI); to provide access to the command line, the GUI included terminal emulator applications that behaved like locally-attached terminals.

When personal computers became ubiquitous in the 1980s, they offered the option of running software on the user's personal computer, providing an opportunity to replace the expensive and space consuming hardware terminals with something that had additional functions<ref>[https://www.emtec.com/zoc/terminal-emulator.html Emulating a Terminal on Personal Computers]</ref>. Immediately software became available, that could emulate the functions of the hardware terminals on a PC. Examples of such software for [[DOS]] were [[Telix]] or Telemate, which was published in 1988 and could emulate a DEC VT102 terminal <ref>[http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Telemate Telemate Wiki]</ref>.

During the 1990s, new operating systems like [[Windows]] and [[OS/2]] arrived, providing the technical background for more terminal emulators like [https://winworldpc.com/product/telix/100-for-windows Telix for Windows], [[ZOC|ZOC for OS/2]], or [[PuTTY]], which was initially released for Windows in 1998 and which (together with its derivates) is still one a very popular choice to this day.<ref>[{{cite web |url=https://www.slant.co/topics/1552/~best-terminal-emulators-for-windows |title=SSH Clients for Windows]}}</ref>.

Through the [[History_of_Linux|success of Linux]], especially running on data centers and cloud servers,<ref>[{{cite web |url=https://www.debianadmin.com/powering-linux-in-the-data-center.html htm|title=Powering Linux in the Data-Center]}}</ref>, the necessity of accessing remote computers through character based terminals remains. This is evident in the fact, that today lists of terminal emulators that could serve as alternative to the aforementioned [[PuTTY]] offers over 100 alternatives.<ref>[{{cite web |url=https://alternativeto.net/software/putty/ |title=Alternatives to Putty]}}</ref>.

==Examples of terminals emulated==