A couple weeks ago I saw this DEC VT102 from about 1980 at Free Geek Twin Cities. It brought back memories.

Back in those days I used CRT terminals, but never one of the legendary DEC VT100 series. I did get to observe them, and loved to watch the slow scroll, which was not available on the devices I used at work. About 1984, when I was working at what was then the Harris Bank in Chicago I got to use the next generation VT200 series terminals, and finally got the slow scroll (when I wanted it). We used these to connect to DEC VAX systems running VMS, which was a great operating system.

The next time I went to Free Geek the terminal was gone. Retro computing is quite a thing these days, and Free Geek has several shelves of old hardware. The computers on these shelves have dire warnings that they are not suitable for connecting to the Internet. However, itt is possible to connect a dumb terminal like this to a Linux system and (with ssh) to safely access the internet in a text-only mode. Of course, for that price of $250 you can buy a reasonably modern 64 bit laptop running Windows 11 or Linux Mint at Free Geek, just a few feet away from where I saw this VT102. Such a laptop would take a lot less space on your desk than a VT102 terminal, use less power, and give you full access to the internet. You can even get a terminal program to emulate a VT100 on your laptop. So retro computing is certainly not cost-effective, but I can understand its appeal.