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ADM-3A

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By the time Toy and Wichman started at UC Santa Cruz, BSD UNIX had entered widespread usage across UC campuses and was branching out to other schools. Each new version of BSD, released on cassette tape, included handy programs written by Joy and other hackers. One program was curses, written by Ken
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The original ADM-3 terminal displayed only capital letters. In 1976, an option was added to allow it to display both lower and upper case. The standard version of the terminal displayed only twelve (rather than twenty-four) rows of eighty characters. In those days RAM was expensive, and halving the
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Working from an editor named em that they had obtained from Professor George Coulouris at Queen Mary's College in London, they worked to produce the line-at-a-time editor ex....With the arrival of some ADM-3a terminals offering screen-addressable cursors, Joy was finally able to write vi, bringing
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were designed with the QWERTY layout and the ADM-3A's original Ctrl key placement in mind. Many of those key combinations are still in use today, even on non-Unix operating systems. Seasoned computer users familiar with the original layout often claim that the different position of the Ctrl key on
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In 1976, the ADM-3A was introduced. The ADM-3A added support for control codes to move the cursor around on the screen, and directly position the cursor at any point in the display. It did not, however, support “clear to end of line” or “clear to end of screen”, or other more advanced codes that
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In 1973, LSI hired a new head of engineering, Jim Placak. He and his team created the ADM-1 later that year. It set a new pricing low in the industry at $ 1,500. Its lower cost was primarily due to a unique single printed circuit board design. In early 1973 the LSI division in Anaheim, California
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Within weeks of the launch of the ADM-3, Cagan started to book very large orders. Its 'Dumb Terminal' nickname came from some of the original trade publication ads, and quickly caught on industry wide. Due to two emerging trends, the device immediately became the best selling in the industry.
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that manufactured these and other products hired a management team for this product line – a VP, national sales manager, and one regional sales manager – for the western region. The ADM-1 was followed by the ADM-2 in early '74. It had expanded functionality and a detached keyboard.
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In 1969, UC Berkeley electrical engineering graduate Kenneth Thompson and his Bell Laboratories colleague Dennis Ritchie wanted to play a computer game called "Space Travel" on a dusty old mainframe computer. To do it, the two were forced to write a new operating system for the
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modern PC keyboard layouts makes the use of Ctrl key combinations more cumbersome. Solutions exist for many operating systems to switch around the Caps Lock and Ctrl keys in software, thus making the PC keyboard layout more closely resemble the ADM-3A's keyboard layout.
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Arnold. Arnold had written curses according to the UNIX creed: a simple tool fashioned for a specific purpose. Wielding curses like a paintbrush, users could place text such as letters, numbers, and symbols at any location on the screen.
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systems were hitting the market from dozens of manufacturers. These required inexpensive operator consoles that could match the speeds. With no fast low cost printers available, the ADM-3 (painted in a variety of custom colors for the
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under the nameplate at the front of the machine, beside the keyboard, including setting speed from 75 to 19,200 baud. The advanced configuration options allowed split speed connection, sending at one rate, and receiving at another.
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electromechanical printing terminal, which could only print ten characters per second, sold for $ 895 or $ 32/month, while the ADM-3, which could display up to 1,920 characters per second, went for $ 995 or $ 36/month.
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display size halved the RAM requirement (and likewise all uppercase required only six bits per character to be stored rather than seven). Further optional add-ons included a
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McKusick, Marshall Kirk (January 1999). "Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix: From AT&T-Owned to Freely Redistributable". In DiBona, Chris; Ockman, Sam (eds.).
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follows it almost exactly. Local Mac keyboard layouts even retain the ADM-3A's position of the Control key, transposing it with the Caps Lock key.
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that were required to move the cursor left, down, up, right, and to the top/left corner (or "Home" position) of the terminal, respectively. The
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was mounted in the top half of the case, which was hinged in the back and opened like a clamshell. The CRT was typically made by
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and had a 12-inch screen displaying 12 or 24 lines of 80 characters. It set a new industry low single unit price of $ 995. Its "
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Computer communications speeds were rapidly increasing, and a wave of general purpose and dedicated single application
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single board design, which included the keyboard and all connectors, was packaged in an original clam shell enclosure.
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The initials "ADM" were referred to as meaning "American Dream Machine" in some advertising.
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tabbed the cursor to the next tabstop, with tabstops fixed at each 8th character position.
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character is also commonly used to represent the beginning of line or "home" position in
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in Anaheim, Calif., May 19–22, 1975, in booth 2348 at a price of $ 995. Its innovative
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editor's creation; the cursor-movement arrows were printed on those four keys. The
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and an extension port which would allow daisy chaining several ADM-3As on a single
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also had the Ctrl key located above the Shift key, just like the ADM-3A's keyboard.
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systems released to the market which required inexpensive operator consoles.
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The 5×7 dot matrix characters were displayed in amber, green, or white
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The ADM-3 followed and the first manufactured units were introduced at
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The legacy of the ADM-3A's keyboard also lives on in Japan, where the
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on black (the cursor was 7×9). The keyboard had 59 keys. The 12-inch
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Lab Notes: Research from the Berkeley College of Engineering
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produced an audible beep unless disabled via DIP switch and
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were new to the ADM-3A. Also common with other terminals,
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key may have additionally led to the establishment of the
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keys were a visual reference to the control characters
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editor and its descendants originated from the ADM-3A,
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Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution
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(LSI) Terminal ADM3A 617: 575: 309:used by earlier terminals, such as the 1359:Computer-related introductions in 1976 1200:"History of the War against Caps Lock" 1157:from the original on 20 December 2022. 990:from the original on 28 September 2021 673:"Introducing The $ 995 Dumb Terminal" 7: 1279:"Swapping Capslock and Control Keys" 1121:from the original on 29 October 2020 1056:from the original on 29 October 2020 297:Unlike later terminals, such as the 142:adding citations to reliable sources 76: (equivalent to $ 5,300 in 2023) 1109:Craddock, David L. (3 June 2016). 864:. Digital Engineering, Inc. 1980. 841:"ADM-3A Lower Case Option "Clone"" 534:was located above, not below, the 331:University of California, Berkeley 14: 1111:"The Making of Rogue – Chapter 1" 1001:screen-based editing to Berkeley. 193:1975 National Computer Conference 118: 1260:from the original on 2019-09-17 1231:from the original on 2019-08-22 1181:from the original on 2019-01-26 1031:from the original on 2021-07-04 952:from the original on 2019-01-08 905:from the original on 2019-01-26 871:from the original on 2022-04-20 796:from the original on 2018-03-03 337:replacement, just prior to the 129:needs additional citations for 527:was used to clear the screen. 1: 325:for moving the cursor in the 699:"Lear Siegler advertisement" 468:functions were the standard 16:Early video display terminal 1369:Character-oriented terminal 1115:Procedural Dungeons of Doom 893:"ADM-3A Maintenance Manual" 1385: 784:"ADM-3 Maintenance Manual" 1145:"ADM-3A Operators Manual" 361:in many Unix shells. The 230:enabling it to emulate a 86:was an influential early 24: 924:"ADM-3A CRT Replacement" 725:"Compact ADM-3 Parading" 1364:Computer output devices 751:"ComData advertisement" 392:labels printed on the 276: 275:ADM-3A keyboard layout 174:video display terminal 88:video display terminal 542:. Many standard Unix 349:label printed on the 274: 214:Teletype Model 33 KSR 176:in 1972 – the 7700A. 1015:"A Berkeley Odyssey" 930:on October 20, 2016. 847:on October 19, 2016. 591:About $ 10,000 today 138:improve this article 31:Terminal with keypad 1309:Lear Siegler ADM 3A 1300:Lear Siegler ADM-3A 582:About $ 5,000 today 21: 1331:Gangwere, Morgan. 1250:"MovingTheCtrlKey" 367:regular expression 307:Circulating Memory 277: 70:Introductory price 1225:"Remap Caps Lock" 1210:on July 30, 2016. 564:Teletype Model 33 335:Teletype Model 33 170: 169: 162: 80: 79: 49:Computer terminal 1376: 1340: 1327: 1322:. Archived from 1287: 1286: 1281:. 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Index


Computer terminal
video display terminal
Lear Siegler
dumb terminal
minicomputer
microcomputer

verification
improve this article
adding citations to reliable sources
Learn how and when to remove this message
video display terminal
1975 National Computer Conference
wave soldered
minicomputer
OEMs
Teletype Model 33 KSR
graphics card
Tektronix 4010
RS-232
VT52
VT100
DIP switches

phosphor
monochrome
CRT
Ball Brothers
VT100

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