Neat book, but read the PDF
3 stars
I was very excited to find out about this book and ordered a copy immediately. It is neat, and interesting for the retrocomputing enthusiast, but its numerous errors and confusing text limit its value. A PDF is available on archive.org, and probably a good way to experience this book.
The first few chapters describe interactive terminals, drawing distinctions between hard copy terminals and display terminals, simple and intelligent terminals, etc., and describing various modes of communication such as current loop, EIA RS-232 C, and modems. These chapters are hard to read, variously due to simple errors (for example, stating that a 5x7 dot matrix print head has 5 pins, and then implying that the rows of dots are printed top-to-bottom, one row at a time), confusing explanations and figures apparently drawn from other sources without close attention to terminology or flow, and apparently missing or elided text (as another example, …
I was very excited to find out about this book and ordered a copy immediately. It is neat, and interesting for the retrocomputing enthusiast, but its numerous errors and confusing text limit its value. A PDF is available on archive.org, and probably a good way to experience this book.
The first few chapters describe interactive terminals, drawing distinctions between hard copy terminals and display terminals, simple and intelligent terminals, etc., and describing various modes of communication such as current loop, EIA RS-232 C, and modems. These chapters are hard to read, variously due to simple errors (for example, stating that a 5x7 dot matrix print head has 5 pins, and then implying that the rows of dots are printed top-to-bottom, one row at a time), confusing explanations and figures apparently drawn from other sources without close attention to terminology or flow, and apparently missing or elided text (as another example, ink jet printing is not discussed at all as a print technology, but it is included in a table of print technologies drawn from an external report). They do, however, point out a variety of technologies and mechanisms pertinent to terminals at the time, which makes them interesting for the digital historian, errors and all.
The later chapters include summaries of a variety of terminals available on the market in the mid to late 1970s (although several popular terminals that were popular and available prior to publication are conspiciously missing, such as the ADM-3A and Tektronix 401x) along with pictures of half or more of the models; this is probably the most casually interesting part of the book for the terminal aficionado.
I enjoyed leafing through this book, despite finding the technical discussions frustrating. I probably would not buy a copy knowing what I know now, but I do not regret shelving the one that I own.