The machine below is an IBM PC AT (Model 5170) with a 6Mhz 80286, 640K of memory, a Color Display, two 1.2Mb diskette drives, and a 10Mb hard disk. It boots BASIC-DOS from the BASICDOS-360K-VT100 diskette and runs two independent sessions: an 80x25 console on the Color Display, and a console on a DEC VT100 terminal connected to COM1. Unlike the PC and PC XT, the PC AT has a battery-powered real-time clock, so BASIC-DOS starts with the current date and time (type DATE or TIME to see them).
Press any key on the Color Display at the boot prompt (or wait 5 seconds) to start the diskette. Then click the VT100 screen and type a command, such as DIR or PRINT "Hello from the VT100"; click the Color Display to use the local session. Changes to the hard disk are lost when you leave the page.
This demo is also available on an IBM PC XT and a COMPAQ DeskPro 386.
The BASICDOS-360K-VT100 diskette’s CONFIG.SYS creates two independent sessions: an 80x25 console on the Color Display, and a console on a DEC VT100 terminal connected to COM1 at 9600 baud. Both sessions start on drive C:, the hard disk, and share its programs and files.
The VT100 console uses the COM driver’s VT100 terminal type, so commands like CLS and LOCATE use VT100 escape sequences, the VT100’s DELETE key erases the previous character (like the PC’s BACKSPACE key), and XON/XOFF flow control is enabled, which the VT100 relies on whenever it falls behind (eg, while smooth scrolling).
There’s also a Serial Display demo, which uses a simple text pane on COM1 instead of a terminal.
REM Local display and VT100 terminal, with shells on the hard disk
BUFFERS=8
CONSOLE=CON:80,25
SHELL=C:COMMAND.COM PATH$="C:\;C:\BIN;C:\SAMPLES;C:\DEMOS;C:\TESTS;C:\TOOLS":HELLO.BAT
CONSOLE=COM1:9600,N,8,1,VT100
SHELL=C:COMMAND.COM PATH$="C:\;C:\BIN;C:\SAMPLES;C:\DEMOS;C:\TESTS;C:\TOOLS"
Copyright (c) 2020-2026 Jeff Parsons Released under MIT License