Talk:Dumb terminal

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[edit] Standard definition?

This article seems to be about computer terminals, not the subclass of computer terminals that are dumb.

I've always understood "dumb terminal" to mean a terminal without "intelligent" capabilities like cursor addressing, bolding, etc. A quick google search confirmed references consistent with my understanding. For example:

"A display monitor that has no processing capabilities. A dumb terminal is simply an output device that accepts data from the CPU. In contrast, a smart terminal is a monitor that has its own processor for special features, such as bold and blinking characters. Dumb terminals are not as fast as smart terminals, and they do not support as many display features, but they are adequate for most applications." webopedia.

This is also covered in the computer terminal article.

I'm also unfamiliar with the definition of a "smart terminal" to be a PC or a "network computer". Any type of computer is not a terminal, by definition. Therefore a smart terminal cannot be a personal or network computer.

On any Unix-like computer you can define a terminal type to be any number of "smart" terminal types, including vt100. But you also have a choice of setting it to dumb, which means the terminal has very limited capabilities.

At most, I think the usage of dumb terminal to mean any computer terminal should be a foot note.

--Serge 06:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The term "Dumb Terminal" or "Dumb Device" Could also mean that it has very little access or can do very little and is therefore limited in its abilities to process jobs whereas a "intelligent Device" can do far more and sometimes far quicker.

--mlewis000 11:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

As long as the portion of the article that this article is merged with can be found by searching WikiPedia using the phrase 'dumb terminal' it should be no problem.