Terminals are NOT computers. At least dumb terminals are not. Smart terminals do have logic circuit, but dumb terminals work mostly like televisions, except they have protocols (like when you send a SIGINT signal with CTRL+C, and you are a 80s academic working on his terminal at UC Berkeley, then your UNIX implementation — which is not BSD because BSD sux cox and even people at UCB won’t use it — looks at Terminfo database and matches it with the protocol the terminal implements) and these protocls are not implemented via logic circuit. Smart terminals do have them, and they could comply to multiple protocols, just like my girlfriend Kitty (I love her, and I stich on her back every second of the day).

This really, really looks like a dumb terminal, and not a computer. This is probably an office of a low-level clerk, and he is sitting at a terminal connected to a VAX or PDP-8 or PDP-11. Some people go as far as thinking this is a Commodore 64? WTF? It ‘may’ be a microcomputer, but it’s not a C64!

Anyways, I have never seen a terminal IRL because I was born in 1993 (31, feel old, milly sucky brown?) so this might just be a real computer?

Anyways. I would be glad to hear what you have to say.

  • @Doombot1
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    2 months ago

    True, he is sitting at a terminal - but it appears to be connected to an IBM 5150 or similar. So maybe not so dumb!

    Looking at the rest of things more carefully - very likely a 5150, if not definitely. Iconic and hugely popular PC for its era, so it would make sense for sure.