Protovac Retro Terminal

A retro dumb terminal interface at my local makerspace.

Sat 14 June 2025

Protovac is a retro dumb terminal interface that lives at my local makerspace, Protospace. Its main use is printing storage labels and name tags for members and guests when they visit.

An 85-year-old member donated the 1983 Morrow MDT-60 video display terminal that he bought new from London Drugs and kept in his closet. Originally this terminal is supposed to connect to a mainframe computer (perhaps in a different room) and display text over a serial connection.

In this case it connects to a Raspberry Pi computer mounted to the back over 9600 baud serial UART. The Pi has been configured to output a terminal over its UART pins and auto login the protovac user with agetty. The protovac user's shell has been replaced with the Python script that runs the curses-based TUI.

You can find the source code on Protospace's GitHub.

In addition to printing labels for members, Protovac:

can control the train in the Protospace welcome room
displays stats about Protospace (next meeting, next class, member counts, etc)
can send a message to our marquee LED sign
has a chat interface to message ChatGPT
has an interface to access Wolfram Alpha
can play the games NetHack, Moria, 2048, Zork, and Hitchhiker's

Here's what the home screen looks like:

  _______  _______      ___    _________    ___   ____   ____  _        ______
 |_   __ \|_   __ \   .'   `. |  _   _  | .'   `.|_  _| |_  _|/ \     .' ___  |
   | |__) | | |__) | /  .-.  \|_/ | | \_|/  .-.  \ \ \   / / / _ \   / .'   \_|
   |  ___/  |  __ /  | |   | |    | |    | |   | |  \ \ / / / ___ \  | |
  _| |_    _| |  \ \_\  `-'  /   _| |_   \  `-'  /   \ ' /_/ /   \ \_\ `.___.'\
 |_____|  |____| |___|`.___.'   |_____|   `.___.'     \_/|____| |____|`.____ .'

      [I] Info       [N] Nametag          UNIVERSAL COMPUTER
                                                             .  *       - )-
      [S] Stats      [L] Label           .      *       o       .       *
                                                    |
      [G] LED Sign   [Z] Games    .          .     -O-
                                                    |        *      .     -0-
      [C] Classes    [V] Protovac Sign
                                                .         .        |      *
      [P] Protocoin                                *              -O-          .
                                           .             *         |     ,
      [M] Message                                 .           o
                                          .---.
      [T] Think                     =   _/__[0]\_     .  *            o       '
                                   = = (_________)             .
      [A] About                                    .                        *
                                         *               - ) -       *
                Copyright (c) 1985 Bikeshed Computer Systems Ltd.

If you press the "C" key, for example, a list of Protospace classes appears:

 PROTOVAC UNIVERSAL COMPUTER

 Protospace Classes
 ==================              Instructor    Cost     Students

 [PAST] Woodworking Tools 1: Intro to Saws
 Sun Jun 22, 2025  2:00 PM       Mike M.       $20.00   5 / 6

 Woodworking Tools 2: Jointer, Thickness Planer, Drum Sander
 Sun Jun 22, 2025  5:00 PM       Mike M.       $20.00   6 / 6

 Blender Phreaking Phrydays
 Fri Jun 27, 2025  7:00 PM       Jeff D.       Free     0

 New Member Orientation and Safety
 Sun Jun 29, 2025  3:00 PM       Cole N.       Free     3 / 10

 Laser I: Basic Cutting and Engraving (Thunder Laser)
 Wed Jul 9, 2025  8:30 PM        Craig P.      $20.00   6 / 8

 Woodworking Tools 1: Intro to Saws
 Sun Jul 20, 2025  2:00 PM       Vince K.      $20.00   6 / 6

 [B] Back  [J] Down  [K] Up

The "S" key shows stats about Protospace:

 PROTOVAC UNIVERSAL COMPUTER

 Protospace Stats
 ================

 Next meeting: None

 Next clean:   None

 Next class:   Woodworking Tools 2: Jointer, Thickness Planer, Drum Sander
               Sun Jun 22, 2025  5:00 PM

 Last class:   Woodworking Tools 1: Intro to Saws
               Sun Jun 22, 2025  2:00 PM

 Member count: 464   Green: 408   Paused / expired: 1590

 Card scans:   18





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