Jeff Epler's Raspberry Pi Pico VT-Style Terminal Brings a Classic IBM Monitor Back Into Service

Maker, software developer, and vintage computing enthusiast Jeff Epler is bringing back the dedicated terminal — by driving a 9" IBM "paperwhite" CRT monitor from a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board.

"[This] is for my friend Chris, who works with retro computers," Epler explains of his creation. "It's a [DEC] VT-style terminal, similar to the VT100 or VT102, implemented on a Raspberry Pi Pico with the RP2040 microcontroller. It has […] an AT keyboard connector and a VGA connector with a two-bit DAC [Digital to Analog Converter], and it's going to a vintage IBM 9" paperwhite monitor."

Designed to mimic the dedicated terminals of the Digital Equipment Corporation and others from the 1970s and 1980s, the project plays a little fast-and-loose with display standards: while there's a VGA connector to bring the Raspberry Pi Pico to the compact IBM CRT, it's outputting a non-standard 660×480 signal — timing-compatible with a 640×480 60Hz VGA signal, but one that may cause trouble with fussier modern displays.

The idea is simple: connect a keyboard, monitor, and the vintage machine of your choice and receive a fully-functional serial terminal with a 132×53 text mode display with four brightness levels. "It's a little slow," Epler admits, "because it's actually running at a serial rate of 115,000-baud — but for your retro computing needs, that's just fine. It can switch speeds down to 300 baud, it can switch to different bit formats […] and it can switch to USB to talk to the host over USB."

Epler has released the source code for the project on GitHub under the permissive MIT license, with full instructions on its use. Additional information is available in Epler's Mastodon post.