We seem to have gone backwards in our expectations of serial port speeds. At the height of the BBS boom, 14400 BPS was widespread, and high end modems were capable of 57600 BPS. (Yes, FOSSIL existed; and not all of us even used MS-DOS.) That 14400 BPS is no longer the expected speed that most people will do, as it was some 30 years ago, and that this is back down to 9600 BPS in 2025, is somewhat sad. We've regressed quite a lot in the computer world in several areas, especially when it comes to serial communications and terminals.
And unnecessarily so. The virtual UART in that VM was probably quite capable of Ridiculous Speed. And a cheap-o real USB to DB9 RS232 adapter based around the FT232R can do Ludicrous Speed.
Speaking of terminals: The point about "vt100" versus "vt220" is not as major as one might think. There are a few but not many features of a VT 220 that a simple block-terminal-like install program could make productive use of through termcap, let alone terminfo. (FreeBSD is one of the very few active operating systems still stuck with termcap, which is actually more significant than the default terminal type difference. And for some years FreeBSD has mis-labelled its KVTs as "xterm" and not had a "teken" terminal type in termcap, although there has been one in Dickey terminfo for quite some time, so long in fact that there has been a "teken-2022" revision.)
Not tested here, was whether one can put the install image on a DASD and then install to other partitions in the remaining free space on that same DASD. (Not everyone installs from DVD, CD-ROM, or floppy to hard disc. (-: Sometimes one has put an image onto a USB storage device or a TF card, with comparatively vast amounts of room to spare.)
From recent personal experience, I can attest that the OpenBSD installer very much does not shine in this circumstance, whereas the NetBSD installer can be persuaded to just install its "sets" to the current system. Although if one doesn't tweak the install image elsewhere before booting, it will insist upon auto-growing the one NetBSD partition to encompass the whole of the rest of the device, leaving no room for swap.
However 9600 is the fastest you can go without worrying about flow control, which both sides need to agree on in order to communicate. That might be the reason it was used.
A few thoughts:
We seem to have gone backwards in our expectations of serial port speeds. At the height of the BBS boom, 14400 BPS was widespread, and high end modems were capable of 57600 BPS. (Yes, FOSSIL existed; and not all of us even used MS-DOS.) That 14400 BPS is no longer the expected speed that most people will do, as it was some 30 years ago, and that this is back down to 9600 BPS in 2025, is somewhat sad. We've regressed quite a lot in the computer world in several areas, especially when it comes to serial communications and terminals.
And unnecessarily so. The virtual UART in that VM was probably quite capable of Ridiculous Speed. And a cheap-o real USB to DB9 RS232 adapter based around the FT232R can do Ludicrous Speed.
Speaking of terminals: The point about "vt100" versus "vt220" is not as major as one might think. There are a few but not many features of a VT 220 that a simple block-terminal-like install program could make productive use of through termcap, let alone terminfo. (FreeBSD is one of the very few active operating systems still stuck with termcap, which is actually more significant than the default terminal type difference. And for some years FreeBSD has mis-labelled its KVTs as "xterm" and not had a "teken" terminal type in termcap, although there has been one in Dickey terminfo for quite some time, so long in fact that there has been a "teken-2022" revision.)
Not tested here, was whether one can put the install image on a DASD and then install to other partitions in the remaining free space on that same DASD. (Not everyone installs from DVD, CD-ROM, or floppy to hard disc. (-: Sometimes one has put an image onto a USB storage device or a TF card, with comparatively vast amounts of room to spare.)
From recent personal experience, I can attest that the OpenBSD installer very much does not shine in this circumstance, whereas the NetBSD installer can be persuaded to just install its "sets" to the current system. Although if one doesn't tweak the install image elsewhere before booting, it will insist upon auto-growing the one NetBSD partition to encompass the whole of the rest of the device, leaving no room for swap.
* https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/114607784909156050
However 9600 is the fastest you can go without worrying about flow control, which both sides need to agree on in order to communicate. That might be the reason it was used.
And for NetBSD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44176919
OpenBSD has one of my favorite installers. Clean, simple, no nonsense and great defaults, but still full of options for customization.