On 2/18/22 11:09, Joseph Giliberti via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
A friend of mine has a TRS-80 Videotex Terminal, which seems to be a very limited CoCo1, intended solely for use with dial-up services which no longer exist. Other than being a display piece, is there any way of actually using it? Could it dial in to a modem BBS?
Wow, that's quite a rare unit. Despite Videotex' great functionality and good market penetration in other countries, it never gained much acceptance in the US. If memory serves, the TRS-80 Videotex terminal speaks the NAPLPS (North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax) protocol, which won't be supported by many (if any) BBSs. It doesn't just move characters back and forth; it's a remote graphics control protocol that has quite advanced functionality, for the time. I fear that it won't be a usable device today, unless someone puts together a NAPLPS implementation. Which, now that this has come up, sounds like a very appealing project. Don't let anything bad happen to that terminal! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA