What is the difference between dumb and smart terminals?

Answer 1

A dumb terminal has no local processing capabilities of its own. The computer it is working from could be in another room. An intelligent terminal has local processing capability, so it does more than just act as a way of displaying things. Most old mainframe computers are attached to dumb terminals, enabling one computer to be used by many people. A PC is an intelligent terminal. It can be linked to a mainframe too, acting as a dumb terminal then, but it can be used as a standard computer too.

Answer 2

First, let's describe the two major functions of older terminals, smart or otherwise. They have a video display and a keyboard.

Straight CRT video displays require a composite signal that continuously streams illumination data for each line on the screen. If the computer has to do this, the processor will be sacrificing a considerable amount of computing time in order to generate this waveform. Let's say it takes 30% of the processors resources. Now the computer can do other things with the remaining 70%.

A straight keyboard is a set of keys that close switches when pressed. When any contact style switch is closed, it generates switch bounce. This is caused by the springiness of the contacts and looks like several key closures in a row to the computer. The dumb terminal keyboard has to be serviced by the computer. The servicing program is relatively simple, but time consuming. The processor has to scan the keyboard every exec loop pass, looking for the user to press a key. When a key press is detected, the processor has to hover over the switch waiting for the key to be released or the switch to open, but remember the switch bounces and if this isn't accounted for, the processor will receive several characters for every key press. Well it's accounted for in the scan routine, but consumes a lot of resources. The whole computer has to sit idle while it debounces each keystroke. We can conservitivly say 10% of the resources goes into key serviceing. So just to service our dumb terminal eats up 40% of the processors resources.

Human interaction with the computer is fantastically slow. Humans move in slow motion in comparison to the computers around us. The computer will have scanned the keyboard hundreds of thousands of times a second looking for you to press a key.

Smart peripherals relieve the processor from the mundane duties of servicing each sub function of a peripheral. The peripheral has some computing power onboard and takes care of the mundane issues, sending only finished product.

Answer 3

A dumb terminal has no processor. A server or mainframe does the computation for it. A "smart" terminal, or a personal computer, has a processor and does its own processing. It can also submit jobs to be processed by a server or mainframe, but it can stand alone as a non-connected (yet still "intelligent") machine.

A personal computer, such as a Dell desktop, an iBook, an Ubuntu Linux box, or any computer with a central processing unit (CPU) is a "smart" terminal.

The difference is that no processing is done at a dumb terminal... all the processing is done remotely at the server and the terminal is essentially just a screen and keyboard.

An intelligent terminal is far more common these days.

Answer 4

A dumb terminal has all it's processing and storage done by a server/mainframe. a smart terminal can process and store data itself.

Answer 5

Dump Terminal is just activate the server function but there is no separate function in own terminal (not autonomous)ButIntelligent Terminal is having autonomous and also client function

Answer 6

it has a micro processor