🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <0eVcDdq00WB3QB5U9W@andrew.cmu.edu> gr1c+@andrew.cmu.edu (Greg Howard Rhodes) writes:
>First thing--it has a mouse! What am I supposed to do with this. So
>far, the only time that it has been interesting is when I am looking
>through the setup menu screens (you can click on things instead of
>hitting function keys if you want).
>Does it do any graphics? If so, does anyone have any drivers for it
>(i.e. Gnuplot, etc). 
>Is there anywhere I could get manuals, etc, etc...?
>Any information whatsoever would be appreciated. Thanks!

There is a separate newsgroup, comp.terminals.tty5620, specifically for
this terminal and its descendants (630, 730); you should post a query
there since it's likely to result in more information in response.

Basically, the 5620 DMD was the first commercial realization of the Bell
Labs "Blit" terminal; it has either 256KB or 1MB of RAM, a bunch of ROM,
a WE32010 processor, mouse, keyboard, and 800x1024 "portrait"-oriented
bitmap display.  A section of the RAM is directly mapped to the display,
and the ROM contains a normal X3.64 terminal emulator and (in revision
8;7;5) an operating system that supports multiple windows, or "layers".

Each layer can either use the resident terminal emulator or its own
downloaded code.  The ROM also contains numerous graphic support
functions.  Older models (revision 8;7;3) need to first have the layers
operating system ("layersys") downloaded, after which all models behave
similarly.  Communication between the host computer and the terminal must
be switched to a special packet protocol once the layers system is active;
each layer gets its own shell on the host UNIX system and has its own
communication channel between that shell process and the layer process.

Typical layer processes include troff postprocessors (hardcopy previewers),
utilities to print screen dumps on an attached serial printer, mouse-
driven text editors, interactive drawing programs, etc.  A Blit family
terminal in typical layers use looks very much like an X11 terminal,
although (with the exception of the 730X model) Blit terminals use their
own protocol that is not compatible with the (later developed) X11 system.

Although originally one had to license all the DMD (5620) host support
software, which for most platforms meant porting a huge amount of code,
the "bare bones" needed to enter layers mode of operation on BSD-based
systems was developed and and put into the public domain, and is now
being updated (see recent comp.terminals.tty5620 traffic for details).
Eventually the AT&T UNIX System ToolChest, which is a wonderful source of
valuable "research"-oriented UNIX software, may include enough 5620
support that you could avoid having to license the old DMD host software
packages.

There was also a fairly extensive list of 5620 documentation in recent
traffic in comp.terminals.tty5620.  Good luck!