Whats the difference between field and mode terminals?
When the terminal was introduced in the early 1970s, it replaced the teletype, a hardcopy output device. Initially, terminals were called “glass teletypes” because they literally replaced the hardcopy from a teletype with a screen display. As computer technology became more advanced, terminal manufacturers added new display capabilities to their terminals, such as low intensity, reverse, underline and blinking options. Each terminal manufacturer implemented different methods of displaying these attributes, resulting in two standards: field and mode operation. On a field terminal, attributes (such as start and stop reverse video) occupy a position on the display with the attribute continuing until it’s turned off or changed by another attribute. For example, turning on reverse video at screen position 1,1 will “flood” the screen with reverse video because there is no other attribute to disable reverse. The exception to the rule for field terminals is low intensity – this attribute opera
