Protovac Retro Terminal (2025)
10 hours ago
- #raspberry-pi
- #retro-terminal
- #makerspace-tool
- Protovac is a retro dumb terminal interface located at Protospace makerspace, primarily used for printing storage labels and name tags.
- It uses a donated 1983 Morrow MDT-60 video display terminal connected to a Raspberry Pi via 9600 baud serial UART.
- The Raspberry Pi runs a Python script with a curses-based TUI, replacing the shell for the protovac user.
- Protovac features include printing labels, controlling a train, displaying Protospace stats, sending messages to an LED sign, chatting with ChatGPT, accessing Wolfram Alpha, and playing various games.
- The home screen offers options such as [I] Info, [N] Nametag, [S] Stats, [L] Label, [G] LED Sign, [Z] Games, [C] Classes, [V] Protovac Sign, [P] Protocoin, [M] Message, [T] Think, and [A] About.
- Pressing 'C' displays a list of Protospace classes with details like instructor, cost, and student counts.
- Pressing 'S' shows stats including next meeting, next class, member counts, and card scans.