The DEC VT100 was the first (though it is said that a Heathkit may have been earlier) terminal implementing the ANSI X3.64 standard (i.e. "ANSI compatible"). It has served as the reference model for many other such terminals in the 1980s and 1990s. Terminal emulator applications (PuTTY, Terminal, etc) are basically a slightly enhanced emulation of the VT100 terminal.
When I got this, a quick test showed that it couldn't find its keyboard, and it smelled foul. After a bit of cleanup, it now works just fine, without smell, although some of the keys are a bit stuck because the plastic split. I hope to hook it up to my PiDP-11 and PiDP-10 at some point. At first it got an honorary place next to its cheap knock off clone, the C-ITOH CIT-101, but it's now actually being used as console.
At university I used these a lot to work on the DECSYSTEM 1080 and 2040, and occasionally on a PDP11. Most of the video terminals there were VT100s, with one DEC VT52, some ADDS Viewpoints or some such, and a DEC GIGI on the side. Most of the terminals, however, were DECwriter III printing terminals.
Date: 1978