virtual terminal (OSI) (VT)

The virtual terminal( VT) is one of the Open Systems Interconnection( OSI) special application service elements ( SASE) for supporting a logical data station. The term "virtual" refers to general properties that any terminal should assume, regardless of its actual function.

The standard specifies logical terminals with various functions that can be mapped to most intelligent terminals. Virtual Terminal provides a uniform and consistent screen presentation and keyboard handling for the entire open system. Virtual Terminal is one of the basic application-oriented services. It is used to implement a uniform system for the conversion of different terminal types to a common basic format throughout the network.

Special application service elements of OSI (SASE)

The virtual terminal is regarded as a line-oriented terminal, i.e. input and output are normally structured line-by-line. It has imaginary a printer and a keyboard. The ASCII character set is used as code, which is embedded within an 8-bit field. Any code mappings are purely local.

Virtual Terminal (VT) is specified in the ISO standards 9040/9041and 8824/8825. The counterpart in the TCP/ IP world is telnet.