被遗忘的哑终端 —— 键盘键位演变的启发者

注：机翻，未校对。

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The Forgotten World of Dumb Terminals 被遗忘的哑终端世界

A quick journey through the lost age of “glass teletypes.”
快速穿越失落的“玻璃电传打字机”时代。

From the earliest days of digital computers, researchers often interacted with these novel electronic beasts through blinking lights, paper tape readouts, or teletypes, which were mechanical typewriters often used to transmit telegrams or news briefs over radio or by wire.
从数字计算机的早期开始，研究人员就经常通过闪烁的灯光、纸带读数或电传打字机与这些新型电子野兽进行互动，这些电子打字机是机械打字机，通常用于通过无线电或电线传输电报或新闻简报。

In the mid-1960s, computer companies began to experiment with “glass teletypes,” which used electronic cathode ray tubes (CRTs) as a display instead of paper. These picture tubes, similar to those used in TV sets, could be written and re-written endlessly with far more display flexibility than a hardcopy printout.
在 1960 年代中期，计算机公司开始试验“玻璃电传打字机”，它使用电子阴极射线管 （CRT） 而不是纸张作为显示器。这些显像管类似于电视机中使用的显像管，可以无休止地写入和重写，与硬拷贝打印输出相比，具有更大的显示灵活性。

By the mid-1970s, video terminals became the cheapest way for multiple people to interact with a single large, expensive mainframe computer system. Around that time, hobbyists also used them through RS-232 serial port interfaces with the first personal computers. The industry began to call these devices “dumb terminals” because they usually did not contain the capabilities of a general purpose computer (however, many terminals of the 1980s did contain special-purpose software and were far smarter than the “dumb” name implies).
到 1970 年代中期，视频终端成为多人与单个大型、昂贵的大型计算机系统交互的最便宜的方式。大约在那个时候，业余爱好者还通过 RS-232 串行端口接口与第一台个人计算机一起使用它们。该行业开始称这些设备为“哑终端”，因为它们通常不包含通用计算机的功能（然而，1980 年代的许多终端确实包含专用软件，并且比“哑”名称所暗示的要智能得多）。

But once personal computers that used TVs or video monitors for displays became common and inexpensive, video terminals began to recede into specialized use cases like accounting offices, library card catalogs, and airline reservation systems. Today, we rarely see them any more, although there are a few holdouts in some large organizations.
但是，当使用电视或视频显示器的个人计算机变得普及且便宜时，视频终端开始退居于会计办公室、图书馆卡片目录和航空公司预订系统等专门用途。如今，我们很少再看到它们，尽管在一些大型组织中仍然有少数遗留设备存在。

I’ve always been a fan of serial terminals, and I’m sure more than a few of you out there have used them at some point in your lives. So I thought it would be fun to grab a handful of classic terminals from the 1970s and 80s and take a walk down memory lane.
我一直是串行终端的粉丝，我相信你们中的很多人在生活中的某个时刻都使用过它们。所以我认为拿起一些 1970 年代和 80 年代的经典终端，沿着记忆小路走一走会很有趣。

It’s worth noting that over the course of at least 20 years, dozens of manufacturers released hundreds of models of serial terminals with many different features—some included color and graphical capabilities. So if you’re interested in diving deeper into computer terminal history, this is only a slice of a much wider world. I’d love to hear about your terminal memories in the comments.
值得注意的是，在至少 20 年的时间里，数十家制造商发布了数百种型号的串行终端，这些终端具有许多不同的功能，其中一些包括颜色和图形功能。因此，如果您有兴趣更深入地了解计算机终端的历史，那么这只是更广阔世界的一部分。我很想在评论中听到你的临终记忆。

1. Sperry UNIVAC Uniscope 300 (ca. 1970)

Sperry designed this very early video terminal to work with its UNIVAC mainframe computer systems. It was created at a time before video display standards were settled, so it has a wide screen with a display ratio more resembling a punched card than a TV set. Accordingly, it also could only display 64 characters by 16 lines of text verses the later 80x24 standard.
Sperry 设计了这款非常早期的视频终端，用于其 UNIVAC 主机系统。它是在视频显示标准确定之前创建的，因此它具有宽屏幕，显示比例更像打孔卡而不是电视机。因此，与后来的 80x24 标准相比，它也只能显示 64 行 16 行文本。

(Photo: Mark Richards / Computer History Museum)

2. Lear Siegler ADM-3A (1974)

The ADM-3A was a stunningly compact video terminal released in 1974 that became popular wit