🚀 go-pugleaf

A while back I posted a request for information on terminals with Meta
keys.  I use GNU Emacs a good bit, and a Meta key is a necessity.

The following were the most useful suggestions.  It seems to boil down
to a choice between Ann Arbor Terminals and Human Designed Systems.
Both sell terminals with Meta keys, and (with the exception of a lot
of good folks who wrote to recommend terminal emulators) no one had
any others to suggest.

	-----------------------------------------------------------------
	Ann Arbor Terminals
	-----------------------------------------------------------------

	From quarles@panic.berkeley.edu (Tom Quarles):

	>Check out the terminals from Ann Arbor Terminals.  I have one
	>of their 'Ambassador' terminals, which is an older, and
	>almost obsolete one (1981 vintage), and it has a key just
	>below the shift key that is marked 'pause'.  In normal mode,
	>this just stops text displaying (and causes the terminal to
	>send a ^S when its buffers fill), but there is a setup mode
	>that makes this a meta key (and you can turn off the ^S/^Q
	>handshaking).  All you have to do is add the appropriate
	>keyword to the termcap entry....  I don't know for sure about
	>their newer terminals, but I think they still have pause/meta
	>keys.

	>I didn't buy it for the meta key, I bought it because it was
	>the only terminal that I could find that had >25 lines of
	>display(not memory, display) - it can display 60 lines,
	>although it gets a little crowded with more than 48
	>displayed.

	[Another fellow wrote that the Ann Arbor Ambassadors used to
	list for ~$1500 in 1983.  Whew!]

	-----------------------------------------------------------------
	HDS (Human Designed Systems)
	-----------------------------------------------------------------

	From mjab@Think.COM (Michael Berry):

	>My terminal is a "Concept AVT" from HDS (Human Designed
	>Systems).  It has a meta key right next to the shift key.


	From mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Mike Khaw):

	>HDS 2000 terminals are fast and have meta keys that can be
	>set to either set the high-bit on a byte (true-meta) or act
	>as an escape-prefix key (you use it like a control-key, but
	>it transmits ESC followed by the other key).  HDS terminals
	>have the meta key below the left shift key, but I don't have
	>any difficulty with that placement.

	>We once evaluated a "Link 3" terminal with a PC-style
	>keyboard.  It was pleasant to use and blindingly fast, and
	>the sales rep. said that the factory would be happy to
	>program the keyboard PROM (?) so that the ALT key would act
	>like a meta key unless the terminal was in PC-Term emulation
	>mode(?).  I think a few of the other keys needed rebinding as
	>well (the "<-" to DELETE instead of BACKSPACE", and "F1" to
	>ESC, since ALT assigned to meta).  If you're only going to
	>buy one though, you may not be able to get a reasonable price
	>on a unit with rebound keys.


So that's the lot.  Grepping through my termcap file turns up a couple
of additional ones, which I mention for completeness' sake:

	   Mu|sun|Sun Microsystems Workstation console:
	   hz|2392|hp2392|hp2392a:
	   y7|t10|teleray 10 special:

All have the `km' (i.e., Meta key) attribute.  Does anyone have any
information on the latter two?

--
Robert S. Maier
SNAIL: Dept. of Math.; Univ. of Arizona; Tucson, AZ 85721; USA
VOICE: +1 602 621 6893 / +1 602 621 2617
UUCP: ..{allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!amethyst!rsm
BITNET: maier@arizrvax          INTERNET: rsm@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu