terminal emulator

terminal emulator

(communications)

A program that allows a computer to act like a (particular brand of) terminal, e.g. a vt-100. The computer thus appears as a terminal to the host computer and accepts the same escape sequences for functions such as cursor positioning and clearing the screen.

xterm is a terminal emulator for the X Window System.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

terminal emulation

Using software in a desktop machine to make it perform like a hardware terminal. The emulated terminal is typically in the VT100-500 family, designed originally by Digital Equipment. Connected to stand-alone, centralized minicomputers and mainframes, VT terminals were very popular in the 1980s. See 3270 emulator, twinax card, virtual terminal and xterm.

Copyright © 1981-2019 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.