VTTEST score card of IVT (Score is 110!)

VTTEST score card of IVT (scores 110 out of 110 points!)

The VTTEST program tests the compliance to the VT100 standard of a terminal or terminal emulator. It sends all sorts of devious sequences to the terminal which will break many programs (screen corruption, crash, hang).
The full details can be found on http://www.kermit-project.org/vttest.html
The VTTEST program itself can be downloaded from ftp://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit/vttest.
If you want to run the test yourself, please make sure you first restore full VT220 compatibility for IVT which is purposefully broken in the default distribution to make it work best with most hosts out there...
Maximum VT220 compatibility can be set in IVT by choosing the "DEC-VT220" profile in the "Create session" dialog.
The VTTEST score card from the Kermit project has a maximum score of 110 points - 100 for basic functionality tests, 10 bonus points for special and extra features, some of which are not tested by VTTEST itself.
IVT scores 100 out of the basic 100, 10 out of 10 bonus points, for a total score of a perfect 110!
Some details:

  • It used to fail on item 50: Diamonds correctly rendered. Version 16.2c fixes this.
  • Item 54: True special graphics and line drawing characters, not simulated by ASCII.
    A real VT100 has a few special graphics lines (horizontal lines that are not at the top, middle or bottom of a character cell but somewhere in the middle). These lines can only connect to themselves, and are not in any standard Unicode font. Therefore, to render these characters correctly, IVT has to painstakingly draw the pixels for the lines.
    Older versions of IVT failed this test, IVT 22.0 does this correctly.
    • To be honest, I added a bunch of VT52 features nobody ever missed, just to satisfy VTTEST, this is the major difference between versions 14.1 and 14.1a.
    A few vt-tests are noteworthy:
  • 132-wide display. All the changes from narrow to wide screens are handled properly. IVT even allows you to choose between sizing the font and sizing the window.
  • LEDs. A VT100 has 4 lights on the keyboard under host control. IVT does this by using 4 icons on the statusbar. But it handles it correctly, few others do...
  • Autorepeat. Strange feature (hold down a key, and it does NOT auto-repeat when the hosts says so). IVT does this correctly.
  • VT102 Features. IVT correctly interprets all these extra features.
    • Bonus points:
  • 101: True soft scroll - yes. The speed is user-adjustable.
  • 102: True underline - yes. Even with fonts that have no underline support (IVT will draw the lines itself).
  • 103: True blink - yes.
    IVT has true blinking, fully performed in software, blinkrate is adjustable.
  • 104: True double-high/wide lines - yes. Not simulated, see this screen shot.
  • 105: Reset terminal - yes.
    When you type F3-R(eset), all session parameters are restored to defaults. IVT also responds to the host command for this, of course.
  • 106: Interpret controls (debug mode) - yes.
    IVT supports various debug modes (ASCII display, hex display). Scripts can be debugged. I really ought to get 2 points for this :-)
  • 107: Send BREAK (250 msec) - yes.
    Actually added especially for this score card, and only on serial sessions (of course), but it is there.
  • 108: Send long BREAK (1.5 seconds) - yes.
    109: Host controlled transparent/controller print - yes.
    IVT even comes with privt.c, a C-program that you can compile on your Unix machine which will use this feature to print either formatted text files or raw data on the printer.
    This allows you to print files from your Unix machine (which may be far away) on your PC-accessible printer. A few special features were built into IVT to allow binary files to be transferred this way, so you can send raw graphics data to your Windows printer from Unix.
    I ought to get extra points here :-)
  • 110: Host-controlled autoprint - yes.
    Of course.

    • So, IVT scores 10 out of 10, making the total score 100 + 10 = 110.
    It may sound proud but few other emulators get this far, not even the very expensive ones!

    The VT220 engine in IVT is shared by all protocols (Telnet, Kerberized telnet, SSH, Serial and Netbios, so it delivers the same accurate emulation regardless of the type of connection.

    Back to main IVT page.


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