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I've been connecting my Tandy Model 100 to a serial port on a Linux box via the TELCOM program with some success. The main downside is that in whatever the default terminfo/$TERM setting it gets, a few keys (input from the Model 100) don't work as expected and anything that relies on fancy cursor/layout control (output to the Model 100) are broken.

Does the builtin TELCOM program have any sort of support for terminal style "rendering" or does it literally just echo back every character it can from the server and ignore the rest?

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Thanks in large part to the Tandy-Terminfo project, which provides ready-to-compile .terminfo definition for the TRS-80 Model 100 and Tandy Models 102 and 200, I believe the answer is: yes.

For example the sequence Esc E will clear the screen, the sequence Esc H will move the cursor "Home", etc. These are set up in that mentioned terminfo file and backed up by a few references I found:

  • The official TANDY 200 TELCOM Manual lists these "ASCII Sequence Codes" on page 88
  • Exploring the Radio Shack Model 100 by Marvin Mallon has a similar table Appendix B: Escape Sequences on page 141

So this is explicitly documented for the Model 200, and also confirmed on the Model 100. Should be safe to assume the Model 102 followed suit as well.

Here is the full list of escape sequences as documented in the scanned references:

  • Esc A Move cursor up one line
  • Esc B Move cursor down one line
  • Esc C Move cursor right one space
  • Esc D Move cursor left one space
  • Esc H Home cursor (moves cursor to top left corner)
  • Esc I Answerback
  • Esc J Erase to end of screen
  • Esc K Erase to end of line
  • Esc L Insert line
  • Esc M Delete line
  • Esc P Turn cursor on
  • Esc Q Turn cursor off
  • Esc T Set system line
  • Esc U Reset system line
  • Esc V Disable video
  • Esc W Enable video
  • Esc Y (plus r,c or possibly x y) Move cursor to specified row/column position
  • Esc j Clear screen
  • Esc l Erase entire line
  • Esc p Enter reverse video mode
  • Esc q Exit reverse video mode
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    I also found some termcap-related notes here: zork.net/~octal/mod100.xhtml
    – natevw
    Dec 5, 2019 at 5:13
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    This looks like a subset of vt52 so in a pinch you could add export TERM=vt52 to a login script.
    – Stavr00
    Dec 5, 2019 at 18:31
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    Turns out this is in the Model 200 TELCOM manual as well; page 42 says "TELCOM recognizes the sequence codes of the 'VT-52' [sic] terminal". archive.org/details/Telcom_for_Tandy_200_1985_Microsoft/page/…
    – natevw
    Dec 6, 2019 at 4:46
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    While TERM=vt52 kind of works, it fails for programs using CURSES, like text editors, mainly because there is one very import escape code missing: Esc I, Reverse Index, which is used when scrolling text down on a page.
    – hackerb9
    Oct 16, 2022 at 21:47

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