VT320

The VT320 was an ANSI standard computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1987. The VT320 was the text-only version, while the VT330 added monochrome ReGIS, Sixel and Tektronix 4010 graphics, and the VT340 added color. The VT320 was replaced by the VT420 in 1990, but the VT340 remained in production until all of these models were replaced by the VT500 series in 1994.

The 300 series replaced the earlier VT200 series, as a lower-cost system better able to compete with a number of VT220 clones that had entered the market. Foremost among these was the Wyse WT-60, introduced in 1986 with a form factor and feature set similar to the VT220, but including 4010 graphics and selling for only $699, compared to $795 for the base-model VT220 lacking graphics. The VT320 was introduced at $545, something of a surprise, forcing Wyse to lower their prices to $599.

Description

The VT300s introduced a number of new features compared to the VT200s. With the great increase in RAM available, the 300's added the ability to store several pages of data locally, as well as perform editing on that data entirely within the terminal. The user could scroll up and down among several pages, normally about three, perform edits, and then send all of the changes to the host in a single operation. This required compatible host-side software to work. That memory also meant all of the 300 series were able to store large numbers of sixel-based glyphs, allowing them to be used not only as a user-defined character set as in the earlier 200's, but also to produce full-screen bitmap graphics by storing a separate sixel for each location on the screen.