Freeware VT terminal emulators for Windows?

[Mike Kier]

My employer currently uses one of the commercial terminal emulators for users to access IDX on OpenVMS from their Windows systems. Due to the licensing costs, they'd like to move the majority of these users to a good freeware terminal emulator.

I know of, and use, VTstar and it is under consideration. They would like to evaluate some others.

Features desired are VT300 or higher emulation (req'd), Telnet connection(req'd), full-screen resizing (VTstar can get close with different font selection for different screen resolutions, but doesn't just automatically adjust to a maximize window event), key definition and scripting would be a big plus.

I'd be interested in seeing the recommendations from the ITRC group.

Thanks,
Mike

[Ian Miller.]

I mostly use putty
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

I don't know if it meets your VT300 requirement.

[Ian Miller.]

See also
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1016653

[Daniel Fernandez Illan]

Mike
Another term emulator you can see on:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/pathworks32/powerterm.html

Saludos.
Daniel.

[Mike Kier]

Thanks!

Putty is on the list to check.

The TeraTerm product from the referenced thread looks very interesting and we'll definitely check it out. (I could have sworn I'd done a reasonable search before I started a new thread, but I sure missed that one).

PowerTerm is a good emulator, but I suspect the folks from Ericom would prefer that people purchase the Pathworks license to get it.

I am specifically looking for free emulators only.

[Steven Coghill]

We use TeraTerm in all our 12K+ field offices. Easy to support. Does most everything we need. The latest version supports SSH also.

We use PuTTY in our development and system management teams. It has some drawbacks when doing full VT emulation, but nothing drastic.

[Mike Kier]

Thanks Steve.

Hey oldtimer, send me your email... Long time no see...

[Steven Coghill]

scoghill hrblock com

[John Gillings]

Hi Mike!

What about using DECterms on the OpenVMS host, displayed on the PC using X? Then the problem becomes "Freeware X servers for Windows"...

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

If you could find a better version of
http://javassh.org/space/start (click JTA binaries) ...
No need to install anything special. But the keyboard implementation sucks.

Wim

[Jeroen Hartgers_3]

powerterm is free.

the most freeware terminal emulators have not the posebillity to lock the setting for users.

[Sebastian Bazley]

Kermit always had good terminal emulation.

Putty is good too.

[Thomas Schick]

@John Gillings
Therefore you can use Cygwin/X-Server http://x.cygwin.com/
Or the thin variant Xming http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming
It works fine.
cu
Thomas

[Mike Kier]

G'day John! Good to hear from you!

I'm a bit reticent to investigate having a couple of hundred Xterms running off my poor little DS20 as well as the management issue, if any, of installing and managing the clients. I will look into it, though.

Jeroen,

Thanks! I'd forgotten that the regular version of PowerTerm was free. I'd used their commercial version in the past and it stuck in my mind. It may very well do most of what we want.

The real lack of most of these is the inability of the emulator to scale the fonts when the screen is maximized (TeraTerm doesn't maximize at all).

I've got a couple of hundred medical personnel (nurse's aides, medical assistants, etc.) with a wide variety of PC screen dimensions and the 1st thing they do is hit the maximize button and want their 24x80 terminal to fill the screen.

[Nancy Strothers]

how do you get powerterm for free? I've downloaded it but it says it is a 30 day eval version.

[Aaron Sakovich]

PowerTerm is NOT free. It is included in the PATHWORKS/Advanced Server kit if you've purchased a valid client license. If your site uses PATHWORKS and you've licenses, you've got it. If you've not any client licenses, you can not legally use it.

Now, if you've got that, then you've also got eXcursion, which would get you X-windows and therefore, the DECterm capability. This is a great emulator, very light-weight on the client end. Most TEs may suck up to 10's of meg per session, but X hardly increases the the base cost of the eXcursion Server per session.

But for free, you're limited to the likes of PuTTY and TeraTerm. Neither are terribly great, and each has shortcomings that the other doesn't (PuTTY doesn't have remappable keys; TeraTerm doesn't do port forwarding, e.g., X-windows or ftp tunnels, etc.)

I use PuTTY for access to my home VMS box from my laptop, and I'm slowly (after a couple years) getting used to the weird key mapping, made especially bad due to the nature of a laptop keyboard! X^] With no port forwarding, TeraTerm just doesn't do it for me. There are times I need X and don't want the session running in the clear over the Internet.

Cheers,
Aaron

[Jeffery D. Urmann]

We are accessing our IDX system using IDXTerm from IDX Corp. I believe we got it free from them. Ask your account rep. In fact, when we report terminal emulation related problems, they will only support IDXTerm. It doesn`t have scripting capabilities though.

Enjoy,

--Jeff

[Nancy Strothers]

I downloaded PuTTy and found it unusable. I could not get connected to our alpha system at work. I currently have an old reflections license but it is so outdated and has the issue of key mapping.

We use Powerterm at work, but they told me I would have to purchase my own license. Not going to happen by me. I usea a VPN connection thru cable modem then opened Putty and no connection could be established. However, I have heard about TeraTerm but concerned I may have the same issue as Putty.

What is eXcursion?

[Robert Gezelter]

Mike,

It is not freeware, but Kermit for the Windows platform qualifies as "inexpensive ware".

Check out the Kermit web page at http://www.columbia.edu/kermit

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[John Vaughn]

Personally, I use putty for all of my terminal needs; VMS, Unix, etc...

Nancy, I wouldn't mind helping out. My initial guess is that you're probably trying to use the SSH port to connect to the VMS host and most VMS hosts don't have that configured (shamefully). Next time to try it, pay attention the protocol selection radio button under the host entry (you should also see port 23 listed to the right vs. port 22 for SSH).

If that's not it, post back and I'll follow up.

[JerryK]

I tried Putty and it works good, except for screen printing and cut and paste. Are these features included somewhere in Putty?

[Ian Miller.]

in putty when you highlight something then it is in the paste buffer and you can go to another window and press right mouse button to paste