Terminals, Displays, Screens, Workstations and Monitors
At that time, the terms terminal, display, screen, workstation and monitor were used interchangeably to describe the same thing, although today only the first one is considered the appropriate one (other ones evolved to reflect other uses). Although not consistently in any manner, IBM preferred term at that moment was monitor.
An operator basically sat in front of this device that vaguely resembled today's PC, except the monitor was smaller, the device was more expensive (US$2,000), it featured a text-only (24×80) interface and the available colors for the screen were only green and bright green, although a seven-color IBM Color Monitors later became available. Some purists refer to a printer as one type of workstation.
Read more about this topic: IBM System/36
Famous quotes containing the word monitors:
“To anybody who can hold the Present at its worth without being inappreciative of the Past, it may be forgiven, if to such an one the solitary old hulk at Portsmouth, Nelson’s Victory, seems to float there, not alone as the decaying monument of a fame incorruptible, but also as a poetic approach, softened by its picturesqueness, to the Monitors and yet mightier hulls of the European ironclads.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)