The RobCo RIT-V300 Terminal

As if I didn’t already have enough ongoing projects on my plate, I decided recently hey what’s one more, and this time rather than another Pip-Boy why not look at some more of RobCo’s product catalog and do something slightly different. To that end the classic terminal seemed like a fun project. It isn’t something that hasn’t been done before, I’ve seen a few takes on it, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that has the feel about it that I’m personally looking for.

Lore

When starting out research for this project I found myself wondering what the terminals are actually called in the lore, all of the Pip-Boy’s tend to have model names and numbers but the terminal didn’t obviously have any name. But digging around the various wiki’s it turns out the lore refers to them via a few different names.

The most common name I’ve seen used to refer to the terminals is RIT-V300, that designation most often appears in the output when starting the hacking minigame:

>SET TERMINAL/INQUIRE

RIT-V300

>SET FILE/PROTECTION=OWNER:RWED ACCOUNTS.F
>SET HALT RESTART/MAINT

Initializing Robco Industries(TM) MF Boot Agent v2.3.0
RETROS BIOS
RBIOS-4.02.08.00 52EE5.E7.E8
Copyright 2201-2203 Robco Ind.
Uppermem: 64 KB
Root (5A8)
Maintenance Mode

>RUN DEBUG/ACCOUNTS.F

I believe this name is likely a take on the real world VT100 terminal and following series of terminals (VT200s, VT300s, etc.) and not just due to the similar naming, but also the commands shown in the output closely resemble commands from the VAX/VMS operating system used on Digital Equipment Corporation terminals of the time, eg. SET TERMINAL is used to setup the terminal characteristics, SET FILE/PROTECTION is similar to a chmod in UNIX for setting file permissions and so on.

According to the Fallout wiki:

The most popular type of terminal is the RIT-V300, a standalone machine with a large cathode ray tube display (in green) and all the necessary components built into a single, full metal case with an integrated alphanumeric keyboard, four function keys and two knobs for regulating the monitor display.

In Fallout 4 there is also a RobCo Sales & Service Center that displays some models of the terminal in the front of the store, each of these models visually appear identical but that could likely just be due to the lack of a requirement on the art department to create new art assets for such a small lore detail. The following models designations are displayed with a brief description:

It Seems as though there was an origin NX series, an enterprise facing E series and then an RX series that seems more geared towards home users. My interpretation is that all designations are variants of the RIT-V300 series and the model designations are just variants for particular use cases, much like with the real world VT100 series there was a VT105 with an added graphics subsystem etc. All of this is just interpretation of course though, so for the sake of having some name for the project I’ll stick with RIT-V300.

More Real World Analogues

As well as the resemblance to the VT100 in namesake and operating system, the physical appearance also appears to be inspired by various real world terminals of the same era. the TeleVideo 920, Hazeltine’s and the Commodore PET to name but a few.

The Plan

Much like with other projects I’ve done up to this point, the most important thing to me is the feel and the believability of the object. I don’t want it to feel like a prop, I’d really like it to feel straight out of an alternate universe, it should sound the same, feel the same to the touch and function as you’d expect it to.

This will mean a few things, to physically replicate the whole terminal as closely as possible I’ll need a monochrome monitor, a genuine CRT with green phosphor. I’ll need to build a keyboard and buttons that match the layout in the game models and I’ll need to create an operating system that replicates the feel and usage of the Unified Operating System.