Color VT terminals

Anguel de Quevedo Garcia wrote: | | I know about DEC VT 220 and VT 320 terminals, but they are all | monochrome.

So far, so good.

| The only character cell terminals capable of displaying | color are some IBM mainframe terminals.

Where did you get that idea?

| So I wonder if there are VT terminals for use with unix | machines being capable of displaying color?

You could benefit from reading background material archived at

By 1985, Digital Equipment Corporation was selling its VT241 video terminal, which communicated in ASCII, complied with the ANSI X3.64 standard, and was capable of rendering text on its VR241 CRT in at least 64 different colors, as well as rendering graphics in Sixel and ReGIS. (ReGIS was popular for pie charts, as I recall.)

One thing you'd miss, though, is that a VT241 did not respond to the ISO-DP6429/ECMA-48 color control attributes in the SGR sequence as many programmers are accustomed to today; you had to adjust the color via ReGIS controls, as somebody did for VMS in this demonstration:

(You may have heard SGR color-attribute control referred to as "ANSI color" sequences, however, color attributes do not appear in the ANSI X3.64 standard! The color codes were first defined in ISO DP6429.)

See also...

But today (yes, in 2005) you can call up Boundless Technologies and order a brand-new VT525, which is a descendant of the VT241, but which responds just fine to ISO-DP6429/ECMA-48 controls, and you can even get an evaluation unit for 30 days for free.

In addition, there are other terminals on the market that would also give you color, such as the Wyse 325ES:

Wyse offers some support advice on controlling color in Unix.

The VT240 and VT340 were color terminals. Also the VT525. See for more info.

VT525 ok, but the other two were not in the sense he's probably asking.